Hello folks, and welcome to an emergency edition of the Hot Mic newsletter. Tonight we’re talking all things TGL, which opened to great fanfare in Palm Beach on Tuesday night. We’ll have much more to discuss as more information about the league’s TV ratings becomes available. If you’d like to learn more, subscribe here, but in the meantime, let’s talk about what we saw.

THE BIG NEWS

In the end, I thought the much-hyped launch of TGL on ESPN… fine. The program ran for just over two technically flawless hours, was a complete hit and didn’t leave a bitter taste in most viewers’ mouths. For a sports league in Season 1 Episode 1 — a league that has been perfectly transparent about how its broadcasts will only get better from here — it feels like a… good place to live.

TEAR DOWN

Half an hour before TGL went live at 9 p.m. ET, things took a strange turn when the end of the Duke-Pitt basketball game appeared to be in danger of crashing into TGL’s scheduled broadcast time, threatening to spoil the opening broadcast with The Biggest of all TV banalities: a delay in reporting. Thankfully the game ended in a bang, they let the clock run out and it snuck under the wire, but the first part of the TGL broadcast seemed to be overcome by an initial tremor of fear.

The TGL didn’t show any chance in the first 15 full minutes of action, opting for a series of player interviews and a brief overview of the league before the action began. The inclusion of Scott Van Pelt gave the production a justifiable amount of credibility and comfort, but he gave a remote intro from his DC studio and the space-time gap was strange. The whole ordeal felt a bit like explaining the rules of a board game before playing a round – no one seemed to retain the information, and everyone seemed a little nervous to just get started.

But then the action began with Shane Lowry’s first tee shot, and the broadcast went off a cannon. The biggest lesson of TGL’s inaugural broadcast – and perhaps the entire inaugural day – is that the league’s shot clock is a revelation. Gone is the boredom of incessant pre-shot tinkering and the drowsiness inherent in playing golf on television. If nothing else, the TGL moves, and that alone gives the format a real chance of survival.

The program was divided into three verses. The first five holes, then a commercial break; the middle five holes, then a commercial break; then a short “break” hosted by Van Pelt, another commercial break and the final five holes. Certainly the pace slowed somewhat as the contest progressed and the excitement of the on-field activity faded as The Bay opened up a huge lead over NYGC. But there was enough of it to hold your attention until the game was decided, around the 8th hole.

The biggest question after Week 1 is the continued balance between flash and substance at TGL. Tuesday’s show felt a little like a big bowl of powdered sugar for dinner. I briefly felt the hit of dopamine, I definitely experienced a rush of energy, but in the end I felt a little empty. Should the competition be serious, funny or a combination of both? I’m not upset that I saw it, but I still can’t answer this question. I suspect the TGL is still exploring its comfort zone.

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GOLDEN STARS

The shot clock: The clock was in use for about 15 seconds before most golf fans began to rethink the PGA Tour’s approach to enforcing speed of play rules. It’s a great innovation, and it’s the innovation that gives the TGL hope to survive, even if the concept becomes less novel as time goes on.

The camera setup: There are about 70 cameras bugged throughout SoFi Center, like Secret Service agents – lead producer Jeff Neubarth specifically designed the league’s camera equipment to be invisible from them other TV cameras and therefore invisible to people at home. It felt like every camera angle was used in some way throughout the entire event, and aside from a few completely oversaturated bunker cam shots, everything was pretty seamless. As a tribute to the production team’s efforts, the shots following the ball’s impact on the simulator screen didn’t feel overly choreographed or boring.

Virtual golf holes: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really enjoyed the weirdness of some of the TGL’s virtual designs. The visual extremes are particularly effective on television. If I had one criticism of the competition, it would be that we needed it more tricked holes. What a world.

The microphones: No reasonable viewer would have expected ESPN anchor Matt Barrie to be communicating scientifically with a group of golfers 85 yards away tonight, but the back-and-forth will be important to the long-term entertainment value of the TGL broadcasts. The functionality worked and delivered a few snippets of golf star personality without being over the top. Xander Schauffele did particularly well.

SVP: Van Pelt, ESPN’s voice for the PGA Championship and Masters, gave the TGL considerable credibility from the start. His pre- and post-game interviews (the last part of his Midnight). SportsCenter with SVP) were concise and effortless. The players clearly relate to him, and his decades of golf experience make him uniquely talented at blending the traditional dialect of golf with the new simulator slang. Even his touch of self-deprecation towards the (slightly frightening) caricature of the TGL marketing team was clever. I was a fan of his inclusion through and through.

Room for improvement

The live discussion: It was hard to make sense of the noise Tuesday night. What was a player talk? What was station banter? What was part of an interview with guests Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy? What music was blaring above the SoFi Center? To me it felt like it was so much to say it was hard to hear anything at all. Some personality came through here, but there’s likely to be a lot more to see in the coming weeks.

The “break”: The TGL’s decision to include a longer break with the SVP – something like a half-time report – was a real rally killer. The commercial-break-commercial sequence lasted exactly 10 minutes, just after the game was decided, and when the competition returned it felt like the energy had been sucked out. Maybe this will get better when the games are closer, but I think it might be better to rethink this format entirely.

DJ Khaled: Please no more.

Live Interviews: Tiger and Rory are both great assets to any live golf broadcast as their extensive experience and golf intelligence are unparalleled. The problem with Tuesday’s interviews was that none of the golfers had much more experience with the TGL than anyone else watching at home, and the show was caught asking them questions even as the action moved faster and faster. Her presence was hardly a bad idea, but with all the other noise going on at the same time, I don’t think the audience noticed much.

THE NUMBERS

There’s no “normal” for a product like TGL, but I’m guessing anything close to 700,000 average viewers would be acceptable for Week 1 on ESPN.

The network’s weekly average has been hovering around the neighborhood for months, and TGL was hammered by a Duke basketball lead-in on Tuesday night. TGL’s hopes go back to ESPN Prime time The averages (closer to 2 million, but supported by the NFL and NBA) remain far off, but beating LIV while staying safely away from the PGA Tour seems reasonable.

WHAT IT TELLS US

We won’t know the numbers for a few days, but they won’t tell us much. Any extremely bad or good numbers should (and will) be taken into account, but anything in the squishy middle should be considered a data point on a graph that we’ll be filling out over the next few weeks.

Hop on the simulator golf train, kids: we’re going for a ride!