Phil Mickelson’s $9M Thrashing of Tiger Woods Almost Went Unseen by Millions: ‘Didn’t Pay Us a Dime’
It was The Match! Two champions, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were to face each other in an 18-hole match at the Shadows Creek Golf Course in Nevada. Everything looked perfect, and Woods had won an event just two months prior. The fans were excited to see him win again. The only way to watch The Match in 2018 was through pay-per-view. The event producers, Turner Sports, introduced the first golf match to be accessed through cable or direct TV and Bleacher Report Live but through pay-per-view.
Right as Mickelson and Woods geared up on the first tee, things went haywire for the viewers and producers. Even after purchasing the product, the fans could not get on. Turner Sports’s then-president, David Levy, talked about the famous bout at the Fairway to Heaven podcast and said, “On B/R Live we had a lot of subscribers signing on; we took their money, and all of a sudden we could not get through the Amazon firewall.” The match could be seen through TV and cable, but B/R Live suffered a glitch, and the fans were getting impatient. They had bought it for $19.99 and wanted to see it immediately.