U.S. nope-en?
For a second weekend in a row, golf fans were treated to an exceptional closing round, with Matt Fitzpatrick, Will Zalatoris and Scottie Scheffler dueling for the U.S. Open championship on Sunday. Fitzpatrick would come away with his first major victory after a thrilling back-nine.
Many watching from home, though, weren't pleased. Fans catching the weekend's rounds on NBC noticed that the network rolled out an exorbitant amount of ads through the third and fourth rounds; many times, the network would cut away just before players' swings.
Others were upset over the network's constant jumping between NBC and its paid streaming service, Peacock Premium.
MORE: How Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, other LIV Golf players fared at U.S. Open
Based on this last half hour or so of @usopengolf, NBC did not front-load the commercial inventory today. What a sad treatment of our national championship.
— Geoff Shackelford (@GeoffShac) June 18, 2022
NBC coverage of US Open is horrible. Thank goodness I have the ability to watch feature groups and holes 11,12,& 13. NBC has too much commentator talk on camera, too many commercials and less actual golf coverage.
— Scott Erickson (@Playgolfer) June 19, 2022
Could you imagine on sunday night football if NBC just didn’t show plays during the game?
— Michael Borkey (@MichaelBorkey) June 18, 2022
This US Open broadcast is truly terrible
USGA CEO Mike Whan took note of the complaints and responded to them on Twitter before the fourth round on Sunday:
I’m on it! We have the best sports production team in the world here with our partner NBC Sports (Olympics, Super Bowl, etc.) and if the amount of interruptions are problematic, we will work with our partner to do better!
— Michael Whan (@USGAMike) June 19, 2022
1/2 https://t.co/bI7wuLMivB
More TV people here than the Super Bowl (true!) so we/the USGA will work to free them up to do what they do better than anyone. This has been a great US Open and we will work to make 2023 at LACC even better!
— Michael Whan (@USGAMike) June 19, 2022
2/2 https://t.co/bI7wuLMivB
"I'm on it! We have the best sports production team in the world here with our partner NBC Sports (Olympics, Super Bowl, etc.) and if the amount of interruptions are problematic, we will work with our partner to do better! More TV people here than the Super Bowl (true!) so we/the USGA will work to free them up to do what they do better than anyone. This has been a great US Open and we will work to make 2023 at LACC even better!," he said in a series of tweets.
Things seemed to stabilize on Sunday, with the network utilizing more picture-in-picture during the action as to not cut away when things were happening.
NBC is back hosting USGA events after buying out the remainder of Fox's 12-year deal with the governing body. The USA Today says that the excess commercials are used to help pay down the costs of the network's purchase.
Unfortunately, it looks like viewers also paid the price.