{"id":100235,"date":"2025-03-26T15:42:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T19:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=100235"},"modified":"2025-03-27T00:45:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T04:45:45","slug":"opinion-brad-millington-brian-wilson-michael-naraine-and-parissa-safai-discuss-the-tgl-golf-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2025\/03\/opinion-brad-millington-brian-wilson-michael-naraine-and-parissa-safai-discuss-the-tgl-golf-league\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Brad Millington, Brian Wilson, Michael Naraine and Parissa Safai discuss the TGL golf league"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece written by Brad Millington, Associate Professor Sport Management at Brock University; Brian Wilson, Professor in the School of Kinesiology at University of British Columbia; Michael Naraine, Assistant Professor of Sport Management at Brock University; and Parissa Safai, Professor and Chair in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University, originally appeared in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The inaugural season of the TGL golf league closes this week with a\u00a0final championship-deciding series. The upstart, team-based, men\u2019s league has made headlines for its celebrity backers,\u00a0including star golfers Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n

Even more noteworthy is\u00a0TGL\u2019s unique format. Events are played inside SoFi Center, a custom-built venue in Florida with an audience capacity of 1,500.<\/p>\n

At one end lies the \u201cScreenZone,\u201d where a golf simulator is used for longer shots such as drives and iron play. At the other end, players chip and putt along the physical surface of the \u201cGreenZone\u201d to record a final score on each hole.<\/p>\n

TGL is the latest commercial venture to\u00a0shake up the golf world\u00a0in recent years. The league is no doubt novel in some ways, yet it can also be explained as the convergence of two longstanding trends: the \u201cmediatization\u201d and \u201cindoorization\u201d of sport.<\/p>\n

A \u2018mediatized\u2019 sports landscape<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mediatization is a concept\u00a0that speaks to relationships of interdependence between media and other institutions, such as sport. More than simply conveying sport content, communication technologies have helped change sport over the years \u2014 consider \u201ctelevision timeouts\u201d or the use of instant replay.<\/p>\n

In return, sport is a source of live, unpredictable and exciting media content, something that is highly valuable in a\u00a0competitive attention economy.<\/p>\n

In this context, TGL stands out as an especially\u00a0tech-infused venture.<\/p>\n

First, there is the golf simulator. The ScreenZone is so named because players hit into a massive screen measuring 64 by 53 feet. Tracking technology is used to map and represent the flight of the ball on screen. This allows for a thoroughly\u00a0datafied sport experience\u00a0as an array of performance metrics are available to both players and fans.<\/p>\n

Also relevant are TGL\u2019s seemingly\u00a0made-for-TV conventions, some of which might be anathema to golf traditionalists. Among them, a 40-second shot clock keeps a brisk pace of play. Players are also mic\u2019d up, making strategy conversations and reactions accessible to the audience.<\/p>\n

In all, TGL is a media spectacle. It is not uncommon for sports leagues to adopt\u00a0new rules and formats, seemingly in a bid to capture consumer attention. But, through TGL\u2019s video game-like components, media representation \u2014 golf on a simulated volcano, among other places \u2014 becomes part of the sport competition itself.<\/p>\n

Sport moves indoors<\/strong><\/p>\n

TGL is also an indoor spectacle. In this sense, it contributes to the indoorization of outdoor sports.<\/p>\n

Outdoor sports from surfing to skiing, rock climbing and many more have moved indoors in recent years (while remaining outdoor sports too). A potential\u00a0trade-off\u00a0is that, while outdoor sports often foreground adventure, uncertainty and danger, their indoor analogues often trade this for control, predictability and calculability.\u00a0The authenticity of indoor sport\u00a0might therefore be debated, especially in historically counter-cultural sports such as surfing.<\/p>\n

Yet indoorization can also lead to expansion. From the late 1800s onwards,\u00a0artificial ice\u00a0in North American arenas allowed for reliable skating conditions and helped hockey move to new locations, growing the game as a commercial endeavour and cultural institution.<\/p>\n

There was also the benefit of escaping the elements.\u00a0As architectural historian Howard Shubert writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cCovered rinks allowed patrons to escape winter\u2019s cold temperatures, harsh winds, and blowing snow and eliminated the immediate danger of falling through thin ice on ponds and streams.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Indoorization is not new, even for golf: golf simulators can be found in converted garages;\u00a0Topgolf facilities\u00a0offer high-tech, all-weather golf experiences. But TGL is a high-profile entrant in a history of moving sport indoors.<\/p>\n

Indoorization as adaption?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Researchers assessing the prospects for outdoor skating against recent climate projections have\u00a0concluded the future looks bleak\u00a0for outdoor rinks, and that indoor arenas and synthetic surfaces will grow more important in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

Put another way, indoorization may increasingly be a requirement, and not just a luxury, in the context of a worsening climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Likewise, sport mega-events have\u00a0implemented various climate adaptation measures\u00a0over time, from snow-making on ski slopes to refrigeration of sliding tracks and far beyond. The future is likely to see host cities become\u00a0climate unreliable\u00a0to an even greater extent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just winter sports. From\u00a0air-conditioned stadiums\u00a0to\u00a0relocated events\u00a0in search of cooler conditions to\u00a0indoor recess\u00a0for students escaping poor-quality outdoor air, the changing climate is a\u00a0point of vulnerability\u00a0year-round \u2014 and for sport and physical activity participation at various levels.<\/p>\n

Our point here is not that TGL was conceived with the climate crisis in mind. Nor do we expect outdoor golf to disappear. Rather, the climate crisis will demand adaptation in sport in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

In a time of technological innovation \u2014 augmented reality,\u00a0artificial intelligence\u00a0and more \u2014 the mediatization of sport will provide new commercial and recreational opportunities that offer escape from, and perhaps distraction from, worsening outdoor conditions.<\/p>\n

TGL\u2019s blend of real and artificial elements can be seen as foreshadowing \u201csolutions\u201d to much greater problems that are beginning to seem inevitable.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brad Millington, Associate Professor Sport Management at Brock University; Brian Wilson, Professor in the School of Kinesiology at University of British Columbia; Michael Naraine, Assistant Professor of Sport Management at Brock University; and Parissa Safai, Professor and Chair in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University, recently published a piece in The Conversation about the inaugural season of the TGL golf league and the “indoorization” of sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,6],"tags":[7488,8568,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100238,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100235\/revisions\/100238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}