A FEW years ago, a friend and I used to play snooker regularly.

For several months, we would turn up at the snooker club and have no problem securing a table. In fact, we were often the only people in there.

Then, the World Championships rolled around. We went in to have a couple of frames on a Thursday afternoon and were turned away. There were no spare tables.

In fact, it was noticeably busier for quite a few weeks. That is the power that terrestrial television has to get people interested in, and playing, minority sports.

It’s an incredible marketing tool, but it’s one that golf’s governing body, The R&A, have decided that they don’t need.

Anybody who reads this column regularly (there must be someone!) will know that the increasing lack of sport on terrestrial television is a particular bugbear of mine.

In the past, I’ve argued that darts proves just how important terrestrial coverage can be to sport, with more people watching the far inferior BDO World Championships than see the best players on the globe battle it out at the PDC’s flagship tournament.

I have also written about my displeasure with the amount of live golf that makes it onto free-to-air television, so you might be able to guess how I felt when it was announced that Sky Sports would be taking over coverage of The Open.

It’s not something that has come as a complete surprise. It has looked likely that the BBC would lose some of their Open coverage for a while.

However, I expected a similar deal to that in place for The Masters. For that tournament, Sky has the exclusive live rights for the first two days, but both they and the BBC cover the closing rounds live.

I would have accepted such a deal for The Open with a heavy heart, but the deal that has been done quite frankly defies belief.

There will be no live coverage of the tournament on terrestrial television after 2016, with free-to-air viewers having to make do with extended highlights, even at the weekend.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t get on with golf highlights. I’ll watch them, but it’s a poor substitute for live action, with the tension almost completely removed, particularly if you haven’t managed to avoid finding out the result beforehand.

The BBC are not blameless in this. The word is that they were more interested in securing the future of Match of the Day than they were pushing the boat out to keep The Open.

It’s a sad state of affairs, but at the end of the day, they need to justify their spending in relation to audience figures. Losing Match of the Day would have cost them far more viewers than missing out on The Open will.

There’s also an argument for saying that avid golf viewers might not be too concerned. The amount of golf on terrestrial television is so small that it’s likely they’ll already have Sky Sports.

Taking The Open away from the BBC means that the amount of golf on free television will go down to just two rounds a year, the closing stages of The Masters, which are on too late for most children to watch.

With participation numbers dropping, this cannot be a good thing for the sport. Surely the R&A, the guardians of the game, have a responsibility to make sure that their flagship event is as high-profile as possible, creating interest in the sport?

Their argument is that the extra money that Sky are offering can be used at grass roots level, but if nobody new is interested in the sport, then who exactly does this benefit?

As I said earlier, terrestrial television coverage is a unique marketing tool for sports. It’s hugely effective and they don’t even have to pay for it. In fact, the television companies pay large sums of money for the right to publicise their sports.

When you put it like that, it should have been a no-brainer for the R&A, but like so many other sports, they have been lured by the money.

Sports see what has been achieved by the Premier League and think that they have a right to a share of the action. They don’t.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, football is completely different to every other sport. It’s so popular that it doesn’t require any publicity, so all of the power when it comes to television deals is with the governing bodies and clubs.

It also lends itself to highlights much better than most other sports, hence the BBC’s desperation to hang on to Match of the Day.

There’s still quite a bit of football available on terrestrial television (just ask my wife!), but if there were none, would we suddenly lose interest in the sport? Would kids stop kicking a ball around in the park?

Golf is not in the same position. Without access to the audience that terrestrial television can offer, there is even less chance that people, and especially children, will be attracted to the game.

The R&A might end up with an impressive bank balance, but if they’re not careful, the result could be a legacy of bankrupt clubs and a return to the elitism that they have battled so hard to overcome.

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