Rise in television revenue offers hope for new venues

TURNBERRY, Scotland (Reuters) - Turnberry's return to the British Open rotation after a 15-year absence is due to increased television revenue which could offer new venues a chance to host the championship, organizers said on Monday.

"The huge media income we have now enables us to come to Turnberry. It does give us the opportunity to look at other venues," David Hill, director of championships for the Royal and Ancient (R&A) said

"Ten, 15 years ago, we had to go to venues where we were attracting 200,000 people because the (on-course) income was so important to us," he added.

The R&A signed an eight-year deal with Walt Disney Co's sports TV network ESPN in November last year to show the event in the U.S., Asia and Latin America while the BBC holds domestic television rights through 2011.

Former Open courses such as Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, which hosted in 1951, have often be overlooked because they cannot cater for vast numbers of spectators.

Other famous courses such as Royal Dornoch in Scotland and Royal Porthcawl in Wales have never hosted the event.

"The infrastructure at most of the other venues that we might wish to consider, whether that be Dornoch, or Portrush or Porthcawl...is not quite there at this moment in time," Hill said, offering hope they could be considered in future.

Turnberry's remote location on the South Ayrshire coast and previous lack of infrastructure had meant it had not hosted an Open since 1994.

More than 123,000 spectators, 80,000 fewer than last year at Royal Birkdale, attended across the week to see American Stewart Cink lift the Claret Jug after beating 59-year-old compatriot Tom Watson in a four-hole playoff.

The R&A said it was not concerned that on-course revenue (from ticket sales, catering, merchandise etc) for the week was down about 3 million pounds ($4.9 million) on last year's championship because of fewer fans.

"When we take our overall revenues it is not substantial. It's not anything that is worrying us," Hill said.

(Editing by Nigel Hunt)