LA Times Muses About Golf/God TV in Birmingham

The LA Times featured an article yesterday about The Golf Channel. It was plenty interesting to see how they depicted Birmingham (No, it’s not what you think).

The article, “They said it couldn’t be done“, was featured in the Sports section of this past Sunday’s paper and was very flattering for Joe Gibbs’ entrepreuneurial effort, which I’ve been lucky enough to hear about first-hand when Mr. Gibbs presented his story to the Birmingham Venture Club last year. One particularly amusing portion of his story that I don’t recall him sharing in front of the VC’s was reported as follows:

When Gibbs began soliciting investors, one future partner scratched his head upon receiving a nondisclosure agreement Gibbs mailed from his office in Birmingham, Ala. Cable TV veteran George Greenberg, who brought the Sci Fi Channel into life, worked for a while with Gibbs and now runs the HorseTV Channel, joked that, upon seeing the postmark from deep in the heart of the Bible Belt and the unknown TGC logo, “I figured that it’s got to be The God Channel.”

While I’m sure the God Chanel would have made it big if Mr. Gibbs had pursued it, we’re glad the Golf Channel got off the ground. It has since been relocated to Florida, but we can take pride in yet another example of why so many startups get launched here in Birmingham. We have a great startup ecosystem, akin to Silicon Valley, IMHO.

Of course, we also have the God Channel here in Birmingham, albeit under a different name. Few know that the Global Catholic Network, Eternal World Television Network is headquartered and broadcast worldwide (!!) from Irondale near I-459 and I-20. It just celebrated its 25th anniversary on the air and hasn’t yet been relocated to a holier place.