When it opens subsequent yr, PGA Tour Studios will home 250-300 staff and have seven studios.PGA Tour

Luis Goicouria remembers discussions going again greater than a decade concerning the PGA Tour sooner or later not solely being a golf circuit, however a serious media and leisure firm. That imaginative and prescient will come to fruition in January when the monstrous PGA Tour Studios opens in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

The ambition Goicouria described has unfold all through the tour’s Global Home headquarters lately, which is only a Scottie Scheffler brief iron away from the 165,000-square-foot Studios constructing.

Goicouria, the tour’s senior vice chairman of media, stated it began in 2012 when the tour determined to convey all its digital operations in-house. Later, the tour launched PGA Tour Live, which has grown from two streams of event protection on Thursday and Friday right into a product that features as many as 4 streams every single day by way of its partnership with ESPN+, with expanded protection round signature occasions.

At the start of 2022, the tour took management of the below-the-line manufacturing of its tv broadcasts. And earlier in 2024, the tour debuted its PGA Tour Fleet manufacturing vehicles that CBS and NBC will share for occasions.

“It’s been a steady drip until now,” Goicouria stated lately as he guided media by way of the cavernous, under-construction venue. “But the proof is in the pudding. It’s one thing to talk about it and another thing to do it, and we’re doing it.”

The fruits of these efforts is the Studios facility, which is able to home between 250 and 300 staff and launch with seven studios (with capability to develop to 12). ESPN+ manufacturing groups for PGA Tour Live shall be within the venue, and tour-specific studios for each the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Champions additionally shall be obtainable. The predominant studio contained in the venue shall be encased in LED video/graphic partitions with a 30-foot ceiling.

Production groups from PGA Tour Live shall be amongst those that will use the brand new venue.PGA Tour

It’s an enormous improve in facilities from the present PGA Tour Entertainment venue in St. Augustine, Fla., which spans simply 35,000 sq. ft and has just one studio.

The new venue will function 290 workstations, 29 workplaces, 13 assembly areas and even an indoor/out of doors café with seating for greater than 80 folks.  

“The thing here at the tour is that we’re really building for the future,” stated Andrew Wisniewski, the tour’s vice chairman of engineering. “Really trying to design a facility that’s going to accommodate the unexpected and future technologies.”

The venue was conceptualized in 2017, however the pandemic led to delays in getting the ball rolling, Goicouria stated.

The bones of the venue are nonetheless coming collectively. Equipment is anticipated to be moved on this summer season, and the tour expects to spend the fourth quarter of the yr in testing mode alongside a few of its fall occasions earlier than flipping the change in January.

Foster + Partners, the identical architect for the Global Home, designed the outside of the venue, whereas HLW International is overseeing the inside work.

The value of the power isn’t recognized, however Goicouria emphasised the challenge was given the OK previous to the pandemic and isn’t counting on any new capital from Strategic Sports Group or Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, ought to a deal occur with the PIF.

“We built this building not only for what we need today, but for what we’ll need for the next 20, 25 years,” Goicouria stated. “This is a very physical, tangible manifestation of the tour’s commitment to production and content and serving our fans.”

Because of its dimension and scope, its choices could transcend golf to different sports activities or networks, and even information reveals, he stated.

“If there’s a weekend that NBC needs to do a broadcast out of here, maybe it’s a February where they have both the Olympics and the Super Bowl, so they’re stretched very thin out of their Stamford facility,” Goicouria stated. “If they need to come here and do one of their broadcasts here, we can switch that. We can do that.”

Other leagues have their very own manufacturing services, together with the NFL and MLB. NASCAR lately opened its personal venue in North Carolina at 58,000 sq. ft. Goicouria estimated PGA Tour Studios could be the most important manufacturing facility of its form between Miami and Atlanta.

“When we’ve sat down with every one of the companies we’re working with, it was a really good opportunity to have this sort of white canvas and say, ‘If you could do it from scratch, how would you do it?’” Goicouria stated. “It’s going to change the way we produce golf.”

Jon Freedman, the PGA Tour’s vice chairman of broadcast manufacturing, stated together with the fleet of manufacturing vehicles, the power will add extra help for the tour’s community companions.

The tour’s media technique additionally included rolling out its PGA Tour Fleet manufacturing vehicles this yr which can be used for occasions by CBS and NBC.ESPN

“Supporting telecasts, PGA Tour Live, the international feeds, everything will be at their disposal,” he stated. “They have some of that now, but it will really be expanded going forward.”

Adding to the tour’s imaginative and prescient lately was the creation of Pro Shop Holdings, the corporate shaped by Netflix “Full Swing” producer Chad Mumm that may sit on the intersection of golf and tradition.

Pro Shop’s Ponte Vedra-based group will work out of PGA Tour Studios, because the tour is a minority companion within the firm. Employees for the digital content material platform Skratch, which was acquired by Pro Shop, additionally will relocate to Studios as soon as the venue is accomplished.

“Those conversations [about being a media and entertainment company] are exactly what we have,” stated Scott Gutterman, the tour’s senior vice chairman of digital operations. “This is about us producing the best content for the world of golf right now and the ability for us to create content and tell stories for our players. Our goal is that we’re a media and entertainment organization that serves the tournaments and the players.”