PGA fans go online for coverage - WCIV-TV | ABC News 4 - Charleston News, Sports, Weather

BY DEAN STEPHENS
dstephens@abcnews4.com

Kiawah Island, SC (WCIV) – The PGA doesn't release attendance numbers but by the looks of things last week at the PGA Championship more than 100 thousand people walked the grounds of The Ocean course. For those that couldn't make it, there was plenty of coverage on TV and also on the web.

The focus of covering sports has drastically changed through the years.

Matt Hong is Senior VP and GM of TNT Sports

"The focus of covering sports has drastically changed through the years. The rate of change from a digital perspective has just been so great over the last five years," said Hong.

Rewiring viewers habits could most likely be tracked back to the NCAA basketball tournament

"March madness gave us the ability to watch whether you were in market or out of market live on a Thursday or Friday sitting in front of your computer," said Hong.

"The biggest thing to follow sports digitally is you can do it whenever and wherever. Previously you had to be at home and have access to a television, now you can be on an airplane and watch a live stream or you can be in the mall or in the car watching on an Ipad and Iphone," said Hong.

It didn't take long for the PGA to pick up the cue. They partnered with TNT and drove coverage of the PGA Championship to the web.

Amanda Balionis hosted the tournament coverage on PGA.com.

"You don't have to wait until the TV coverage starts. We start at 8am with two marquee groupings. One in the morning and one in the afternoon," said Balionis.

The biggest challenge not only for PGA.com and TNT, but for all of the media who jammed the media center is staying ahead of the game. The only constant in the business is change."

‘We're looking at predictive gaming. The past couple of years we incorporated twitter & Facebook, these are things that didn't exist two years ago even five years ago," said Hong.