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Conversations with the smartest people in the golf business to get the inside stories and strategies driving the business of golf forward. Hosted by former PGA Tour player Roberto Castro.
[00:00:00] Roberto: Welcome back to the Course Record Show, Quick 9 with Jon Bradway. He’s a Principal at CapTech Consulting and oversees the Sports and Media practice. Disclaimer: Jon and I are colleagues at CapTech.
Jon, I know 2026 has been a whirlwind. You’ve racked up SkyMiles already, by my count—TGL, PGA Show, Super Bowl, AT&T Pebble Beach. What’s the common thread? What have you learned? What’s happening in the data and technology world across sports? You’ve covered a lot of ground already in 2026.
[00:00:28] Jon: Yep, it’s definitely been a fast start. First of all, thanks for having me.
[00:00:31] Roberto: Sure.
[00:00:31] Jon: I always love listening. Yeah, so I’ve already made Platinum Medallion on Delta this year. So a lot, a lot of time in the air. Thanks for taking good care of me, Delta team.
Yeah—TGL, PGA Show, Super Bowl, AT&T Pebble Beach have been quite the stretch. I think the common thread across all of those is just the level of data and technology and thoughtfulness in how that can change those properties and where they’re taking sports overall.
Obviously, TGL doesn’t exist without the data and technology from the ground up. How that’s impacting storytelling and audience engagement is really fascinating. At the PGA Show, you can’t go to pretty much any booth without some mention of technology and how they’re using it and seeking to expand the golf lifestyle.
The Super Bowl—it’s such a large stage. We spend a lot of time in golf; it’s fascinating to see how big the Super Bowl is and all that it encompasses. I went to my first flag football game there. Learned a lot about that. Excited to see how data and technology can continue to improve that product from the youth level all the way up. That’ll be pretty fascinating.
And then Pebble Beach—beautiful place, first of all. Great to be amongst titans of industry in that setting. But the PGA Tour and its broadcast partners do a great job of iterating through broadcast technology throughout the season. Every week there’s a new feature, new capabilities, which add to the broadcast and the stories that are told both on and off the course.
[00:02:01] Roberto: Yeah, I saw that Phoenix had its highest ratings in seven years, and I thought it was a noticeable step up in broadcast quality. The drone footage, coupled with the tracers, feels like as big a jump as it was from no tracer to tracer. It’s just stunning. And at Pebble Beach—throw the drone and trace at Pebble Beach and it’s next level. I’m looking forward to watching that tournament.
You mentioned flag. There’s some stuff in the news—NFL’s investing heavily, playing in LA 2028. I’ve never really watched or been to a game. Tell me a little bit more about that.
[00:02:35] Jon: It was fascinating. I’d never been either. I’ve watched a couple live in person, and then I watched the celebrity content creator game on YouTube, so I got two different experiences.
What impresses me is how fast it moves. It’s a very different style of play—or can be a different style of play. There are plays where you’re trying to juke and deke and just how you stunt the ball that you would never try in traditional tackle football with a 350-pound individual about to tackle you. So it really changes the play dynamics.
The ball moves around in the backfield very quickly and multiple times before forward progress. So there’s a lot—it’s a different style of play. And I think some of the stories that can come out of it—both off the athletes, who aren’t helmeted up so you can see their facial expressions and get more from their personalities on the field—that will be interesting to see.
And then how you connect an AAU USA–Mexico game or a content creator game like we saw there down to something that my kids might play in their local NFL Flag League could be really interesting from a storytelling standpoint—how you measure what’s good and how you talk about play. So I’m excited to see how all that comes together.
[00:03:49] Roberto: Yeah. The commonality with golf is participatory sport, right? That’s the unique thing about golf—a lot of people watching also play golf. Nobody plays tackle football after maybe high school at the most.
I don’t think flag is going to explode from a participatory standpoint, but like you said, more and more kids are playing it. It’s really growing. And that connects a player to a viewer and builds loyalty, in my opinion.
[00:04:14] Jon: Agreed. Yeah. And think about international, too.
[00:04:16] Roberto: Yep. All right.
When you talk about speed and data and tech, I think TGL—we’ve been on that ride together the last four or five years. You have a background—you did a couple startups yourself, you’ve been in the media industry. You could do cool things for a long time, but TGL would still stand as a once-in-a-lifetime project.
Right now, halfway through Season 2—what’s your outlook? What are the biggest lessons learned now that the league has its footing? When you reflect on TGL, what comes to mind first?
[00:04:44] Jon: Yeah, the scale of that startup is a little different than any of the ones that I’ve done—or much of what my friends have done. It’s pretty cool to see how Mike and the team pulled all that together.
Two of the biggest takeaways for me have been, first, the partners that came together—the technology partners, the investment partners, and the brands. They were integral in getting that product out and onto the field.
Everyone was super invested. They had different angles and perspectives they were pursuing and value they were adding into the project. But literally everyone—from SoFi to CapTech to Full Swing to some of the investors—were involved in helping us remove barriers, be flexible, and advance things forward on an extremely ambitious project that no one had done before.
It was a very surreal experience to just have everyone buy in and invest in the success of TGL while they were doing all the other things they were doing. So that was really cool. And it’s just a great reminder that your team and your success expand well beyond you. It needs to go out multiple rings. That’s a big reminder.
Secondly, don’t be afraid to change what’s possible. My favorite part about TGL is the enthusiasm it brings from the players on the field. I’ve got two teenage kids—how they talk about it and how they consume it. I’ve seen them take the TGL alternate shot, triples format out onto green grass and play it.
It builds excitement in a different way. Obviously it’s not the same game on green grass, but they’re inspired by it. I think what was created in TGL is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new, tech-fused, innovative formats that can be created—both in sports and, I think, movies and TV shows. Entertainment venues in general will continue to become more immersive and continue to change what’s possible.
So I’m excited to see where that goes. TGL is a great catalyst to get people thinking bigger.
[00:06:54] Roberto: I think that’s well said. And I have two stories to back that up.
In my broadcast role, I have all the player mics in my ear. When Jupiter played their first match, they did the intros. Akshay was standing there with Tiger as they introduced the other team. Akshay just looks around the arena, the SoFi Center, and he goes, “This is unbelievable. How did you think of this?”
Tiger turns to him and says, “Is McCarley and me and Rory—and you know what the average age of the PGA Tour viewer is?” Akshay was like, “I have no idea.” Tiger goes, “65 years old. So we need to get that younger.”
And what do young kids want? What do they love? Things that are quick, move fast, and video games. This is like video games meet reality. Just hearing that exchange between those two was really powerful.
And then I get two texts a week—literally two texts a week—from friends who say, “I have teenagers. My 13-year-old son watches every week.” Their enthusiasm—when you’re in that stage of life where you’re watching SportsCenter four times over and your whole life revolves around sports (and probably video games now)—they’re really invested in TGL.
Those are the golf trip buyers. Those are the country club members 20 years from now. So it’s a real catalyst for the industry.
[00:08:04] Jon: Totally agree.
[00:08:05] Roberto: All right. At CapTech, we’re spending a lot of time with clients on AI. At the PGA Show, you hosted a panel—and I’m not just saying this—you always learn something from a panel, but the one you hosted was excellent.
The guests were the CIO of Invited Clubs, the CIO of the Orlando Magic, and Rob Smith from the PGA of America. Great conversation. I had a couple takeaways. What were your biggest ones? You were the MC.
[00:08:29] Jon: That was a lot of fun. It was a really cool group with different perspectives.
My biggest takeaway—I knew this, but I thought it was very well said by Brian Koch from Invited—is that AI is already here. Whether you as an organization have already developed AI solutions or not, your guests and customers are using it.
They’re walking into the club, the restaurant, whatever. They’re researching what you’re doing or comparing what you’re doing through AI—ChatGPT, Gemini, all of them. Your customer is already using AI, so you need to just start, accept that it’s here, and begin to experiment and learn.
What we’ve seen at CapTech is that you can move quickly. If your data and technology are in place—or even if they’re not—you can find solutions that help advance the ball quickly. We can build POCs that show the opportunity in an afternoon, productionalize it in a week, and get it out to market to start testing very quickly.
The investment required to start testing and learning is minimal. You should be leaning into that. And, shameless plug, we can help find ways to create new ROI and new opportunities through it.
It’s a fascinating space to see how quickly it’s moving. It’s fun to have transformative technology in the mix and in the middle of sports.
[00:09:54] Roberto: Yeah, and you mentioned ROI, and that’s important. But sometimes it’s just about better serving your customers.
The work we’ve done with the PGA of America—they don’t have any problem selling out their inventory of the PGA Championship. It’s one of golf’s four majors. So our focus on tournament day was a better fan experience, a better fan journey.
Using some data points to know that I may be going with my college buddies, Jon may be going with his young kids—how do we make that experience better based on who you are and what your goals are for that day?
We did some really cool things that Quail Hollow will be doing similarly at Aronimink in May. That’s really exciting and really impactful for people. Maybe it’s not about selling another T-shirt or another beer. It can help with those things, but it’s about serving your customer.
[00:10:36] Jon: Yeah, and to your point, there are lots of different ways you can create ROI. In entertainment and sports, you have alternatives. There are many things you can do to entertain yourself. Creating the best customer experience to get the fan and the customer to come your way—you can’t take that for granted.
You have to be making fan engagement and fan experience better. Period.
Then how you drive monetization directly and indirectly off of that—you need to work on that. But what’s cool about AI is it shifts the point of diminishing marginal returns so you can do more. So get creative. There are clear things you can do to improve efficiency in your organization, but there are also things you can do that are new and create new opportunities. That’s exciting.
[00:11:18] Roberto: Yep. I like that.
All right, what’s next? We covered some of your whirlwind six weeks. I know it’s not slowing down from here. What’s energized you the most? You’re on a Delta jet coming back to Atlanta—what are you daydreaming about or thinking about that was really interesting? Something you want to learn more about or lean into? Where’s the opportunity?
[00:11:37] Jon: I think it goes back to what I said with TGL—the opportunity to change and transform how sports is experienced is there.
You can do that by creating a new sport. You can do that by changing the broadcast and how the story’s told, much like what you’re doing with TGL. You can change how the fan experience is personalized. You can change how an event is operated to make it better for everyone. You can allow a sponsor to connect with the fan in a new way to tell their story.
All of those things change the overall complex of how sports is experienced and consumed. That’s super exciting to me.
I think about what our role is in that ecosystem. I think we’re well positioned as a sports technology services firm—almost like an agency—helping with data productization that enables you to understand new things about what’s happening on the field, with the fan, or in your venue, and then unlock the next generation of experiences.
Those can take lots of shapes, and we’re excited to find all those opportunities for and with our clients. We’re ready to serve them. It’s an exciting time.
[00:12:46] Roberto: I like it.
All right, Jon, thanks for joining. I know you’re not slowing down. We’ll have to have you back on a regular basis. We have the second half of the TGL season coming up. I’ll be there—Best Buy analyst desk. CapTech will be there. It should be a good run-up into the playoffs.
And then let’s see if Atlanta Drive can defend their title. Thanks again, Jon.
[00:13:03] Jon: Yep. Thanks for having me.