Key takeaways:
– Audience insight should drive content strategy, not intuition. Rights holders that actively listen to fan behavior can better align formats, timing, and storytelling with real demand.
– Personalization at scale requires understanding what fans engage with, not just where they show up, making content consumption data a critical input for smarter decisions.
– Data-informed workflows allow organizations like the PGA TOUR to adapt faster, optimize output across platforms, and deliver experiences that feel relevant.
LeBron James has been hearing about the golf bug for years. He never paid much mind to it. “I was like, ‘Well, it’s not gonna get me. I don’t like golf at all. Who wants to be outside all day walking around?’” he told Steve Nash, his co-host on the podcast Mind the Game. But last summer, James got bitten. And since then, he’s been watching more golf than basketball.
To wit: after a game against the Utah Jazz, James was asked by a reporter if he thought Utah guard Keyonte George was playing at an All-Star level this season. “I watch golf these days, so I’m the wrong guy to ask about that,” he said. “(George) played great tonight, played great the last time we played them, he’s playing good ball. But yeah, I’m more into the Bryan Bros, Grant Horvat, Bryson DeChambeau, and the rest of those guys.”
Now, thanks to an expanded partnership between the PGA TOUR and Amazon Web Services (AWS), James and other golf fans will be able to track their favorite players more easily. As part of the partnership, AWS has built a new “favorite players hub” that’s featured on the PGA TOUR’s website and mobile app. The personalized hub auto-curates each player’s highlights, storylines, and real-time stats, ensuring fans always have the most relevant information.
From Tee to Tailored: What Fans Actually Want
The new favorite players hub is the latest enhancement to echo an approach LeBron James knows all too well: Know Your Personnel (KYP). In basketball, KYP is a core coaching principle that emphasizes understanding players’ (teammates and opponents) preferences and tendencies to make better in-game decisions. The PGA TOUR appears to have applied this principle to golf fans, catering to their interests and tastes.
According to a recent global study commissioned by IBM, golf fans have unique tastes and interests. Drawing on the insights of more than 20,000 sports fans across 12 countries, the study revealed that:
- Sports apps are particularly popular among golf fans, with 36% using the PGA TOUR app or official tournament apps.
- 56% of golf fans follow influencers, mostly to consume in-depth analysis.
- Golf fans are more likely than other sports fans to use interactive viewing technology.
These findings align with those of Fan Forward, an ongoing fan outreach initiative launched by the PGA TOUR in 2024. With feedback from over 50,000 fans – avid, casual, and non-golf sports fans – Fan Forward has enabled the tour to gain a better understanding of what fans want to see more of, and quickly innovate to create immersive digital experiences that offer deeper and more personalized engagement.
Turning Insights Into Interactions
As a result, the PGA TOUR’s owned platforms now include the following fan experiences:
- AI shot commentary
The newest addition to TOURCAST, the tour’s 3D interactive platform, AI shot commentary debuted in THE PLAYERS Championship in March. TOURCAST allows fans on the PGA TOUR’s app and website to see shot trails and data surrounding every single shot. The new commentary feature provides written context for every shot, expanding the tour’s coverage of 30,000-plus shots hit during a given tournament.
In addition to describing every shot, AI shot commentary explains what that shot means for each player based on their current performance and how it relates to the broader competition. The tour acknowledged this is a direct response to Fan Forward, which revealed that the 18-34 demographic wants to see “greater integration of stats and data” in the viewing experience.
- Automated story generation
A feature that creates personalized content for users of the PGA TOUR mobile app, enabling event recaps for all players in a field. “Our goal has always been to make sure every player gets coverage,” said Scott Gutterman, senior vice president of digital and broadcast technologies at the PGA TOUR. “Generative AI is a tool we can use to scale across our events to create content based on the performance of any player at any given point of time.”
- “Rapid Rounds”
Through Fan Forward, the tour learned that 44 % of casual fans and 42% of core fans want to see more highlights and round recaps – the highest share among six content improvement options. The result: the tour and its media partners – CBS Sports, ESPN, Golf Channel, and NBC – introduced select rapid-fire versions of full player rounds, available to fans across owned platforms in the hours after play has been completed for the day.
Scaling Relevance With AI
The PGA TOUR’s approach offers a clear lesson for rights holders navigating an increasingly crowded attention economy: listening is no longer optional. By actively studying fan behavior and responding with tangible product changes, the tour has turned insight into advantage. Understanding what different audiences value, and acting on it quickly, is how sports organizations stay relevant when every swipe presents another option.
Across sports, the signal from fans is strikingly consistent. They want experiences that feel personal, intuitive, and rich in context, with the best moments surfaced effortlessly. AI-powered content creation tech makes that possible at scale, transforming raw action into tailored highlights, recaps, and storylines across platforms. And when content adapts to fans, as the PGA TOUR shows, even non-fans find themselves catching the golf bug.
Actionable insights:
- Study what fans actually watch, not just what you publish. Track which players, moments, formats, and lengths drive completion and replays, then use those signals to prioritize future content output.
- Let audience behavior guide format decisions. If short clips, specific shot types, or certain golfers consistently outperform, shift focus toward those patterns instead of defaulting to traditional highlight packages.
- Regularly review content performance data with editorial teams so insights from fan engagement translate into smarter packaging and more relevant storytelling across platforms.
