Log on, tune in and putt out

The internet revolution:The geeks are partying like it's 1999 and golf is already feeling the effects. Richard Gillisreports

There's plenty of golf on the internet. To enjoy it, all you need is time and no life whatsoever. But spend half an hour wading through Youtube.com and you'll be rewarded for your efforts. Sort of.

There is something for everyone, which is a mixed blessing. First up, a great three-minute clip from the post-Simpsons cartoon Family Guy, which has a bit where a group of friends play a local club in the deep south of the USA. The black friend has to wear a Richard Nixon mask to avoid aggravation from the members. ("Hey, it's a black guy. No, it's okay, it's Richard Nixon.)

Another clip shows the LPGA star Natalie Gulbis hitting a wedge from 100 yards and striking a spectator, who falls off the back of the bleachers. It's not Woody Allen but, hey, its free.

The Tiger Trapis a bit of film sponsored by Buick. Tiger Woods approaches random fourballs at a municipal as he tries to give away an SUV for nearest the pin. It's all done with hidden cameras. What starts out as just another ad keeps you watching to see who wins. Sadly, a sales rep with a neck wider than his head gets to drive the car away. Just when the makers of gas guzzlers get the chance to show their good side they totally screw up.

Mixed in with the quirky stuff there are acres of great archive footage: Tom Watson chipping in to win the US Open at Baltusrol; Tiger hitting an extraordinary five wood out of sand and over trees to six feet, and his outrageous chip shot at the 16th at Augusta in 2005, where the swoosh hangs on the edge of the cup for what seems like minutes.

Away from Youtube the terrain becomes rockier. For example, Insidegolf.com is a selection of dull bits from post-round press conferences: Phil Mickelson saying how much fun he had out there; Scott Verplank recalling his round shot by shot.

Celebritygolf.com is a series of interviews with non-golfers and even non-celebrities. One page asks you to select the thoughts of either Ivan Lendl or Kenny G. Not what the internet was for.

Europeantour.com is 10 years old this month. Besides masses of statistics and information, it offers short highlights packages of the big events, using Sky footage. The Tour tells The Irish Times these highlights are daily downloaded by 100,000 users.

The US counterpart, pgatour.com, offers a similar free package. In addition, it has Tourcast, which adds computer graphics to track balls or analyse players' swings. Both sites have extensive magazine stuff: interviews, playing tips, forums and retail links.

As broadband spreads, the video element to the sites is increasing to where the line between internet and TV blurs.

"Google owns the office environment; it is now going after the living-room," said one analyst.

A scenario of the near future presents itself: viewers accessing the internet via TV sets, using Google or other search engines to select channels.

This is indeed happening already. Sony have launched a line of Internet Protocol sets (IPTV) that simplify streaming of website video content onto TV screens.

"The line between TV and the internet is becoming extremely blurred," says the European Tour's Mark Liechtenhein.

Currently, internet rights for tournaments are bundled with the Tour's broadcasting deal with Sky, which runs to 2008. This mirrors a practice being adopted by other major sports governing bodies. It protects the value of TV packages.

If coverage of the Irish Open, for instance, were available elsewhere on the internet, the exclusivity that prompted Sky to pay a premium would collapse.

"The internet as a . . . mechanism of live broadcast to a mass audience is still a long way off in terms of being cost effective," says Liechtenhein. "It is also not the best mechanism to deliver live sport. But it is fantastic for video on demand."

He believes Europeantour.comcomplements television.

"Over history, no one media has replaced another, but it may have displaced it," he says.

"Every time we have something new, people herald the end of what we had before. TV didn't kill radio or cinema. Currently, the internet is trying to emulate what TV does, which is a flawed approach."

Liechtenhein thinks the internet will develop to distance itself from the TV model: "Tourcast on Pgatour.comis a good example; it's different."

Meanwhile, serious money is heading for the creators of website magic. The geeks are partying like it's 1999 again. The business pages are full of multi-billion-euro deals. TV and newspapers see some of their ads moving away and going online.

According to Advertising Age, the US industry bible, US online ad revenue reached a record $4.8 billion (€3.5 billion)last quarter, an increase of 33 per cent since 2005. Much of this activity is driven by broadband. Over 60 percent of US homes have broadband. (In Ireland the technology is lagging behind at 12.5 percent, according to recent OECD figures.)

Cash is pouring into internet start-ups as entrepreneurs with billions to invest seek the next internet sensation.

Where Myspace.comand Youtubelead, others will follow.

Last year Rupert Murdoch's News Corp spent €1.09 billion on internet acquisitions, including €420 million for Myspace.com, the social networking site.

Analysis shows about half the media investments are in firms focused on the internet.

"We get three or four calls per week from people looking to invest," said Thomas McInerney, founder and chief executive of Guba, a site for viewing user-generated content.

"These investors are going through the top 2,000 companies in the Alexa rankings (of website usage) and all of these seem to be getting a steady stream of calls."

In a trendy mews office in Brighton, on the south coast of England, these figures have captured the interest of Danny Crouch, managing director of Made Up Media, an internet venture that plans to focus on golf. Ingolfwetrust.com is one of six websites they plan for the next year. Others will focus on soccer, rugby, cricket and betting.

Having been publisher of Golf Punkmagazine, Crouch has built a network of likely advertisers.

"Every client I talked to asked the same question: what are you doing on the web?" says Crouch.

"It came to a head when a major bank told me they wanted to spend the equivalent of a year's print advertising on the internet in just one month. That was our magic moment."

He has raised a seven-figure sum in venture capital.

Other multi-sport sites have prospered. The 365 group, of which football365is the flagship, was bought by News International for €139 million in 2006. Magicalia, which owns golfmagic.com, raised €18 million in private equity.

The challenge for these companies is to provide something compelling to watch without recourse to coverage of events from the major tours, which is prohibitively expensive.

The Youtube model is coming under keen scrutiny. The European Tour and other major governing bodies are aggrieved the site can show clips - taken from the Sky broadcast and posted by Youtubeusers - of the tour without payment.

Television companies like Sky are equally irritated by what they see as a leakage of the exclusivity they have bought.

"I don't see Youtubeas an opportunity," says Mark Liechtenhein. "We monitor it to see what sort of stuff is going up there. There is some European tour material on the site, but it is really an issue for the broadcasters."

He rejects the idea that golf's exposure on Youtubeand other sites such as Myspaceis an opportunity for the sport to build an audience beyond its traditional, aging, white, middle-class constituency.

The example of how the music industry has been revolutionised by digital downloading does not apply, according to the Tour's new media chief.

"Music is consumed in a different way from live sport," says Liechtenhein. "Live golf is the main asset we have as a governing body.

"The Youtubeenvironment is much more diverse, whereas sport is very much channel driven - people come to Europeantour.com because they know what they will find. Stumbling over clips from a few years ago on Youtube is not going to have much impact."

The next few years will test this view. Executives in the music industry used to say something similar. They're not saying it anymore.