With reruns of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf reairing on Golf Channel over the holidays, 2018’s reincarnation of a made-for-television golf spectacular will be returning in 2019 and 2020, according to a report from GolfWorld‘s Dave Shedlowski.
Citing a confidant of the two men, Shedlowski reported that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson’s shared enterprise signed a three-year deal with Turner, meaning “The Match” was never supposed to be a one-and-done event.
“Neither Turner nor its parent WarnerMedia have released official figures, but knowledgeable sources told Golf World that the $9 million showdown between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson on Nov. 23 in Las Vegas drew nearly one million customers who paid the $19.95 fee,” the report said.
The Match 2.0?
Turner has signed a three-year deal Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to bring back the event in 2019 and 2020, and one source says a team competition is “almost a certainty”: https://t.co/LjSBl4GKwJ pic.twitter.com/XBB0rAaO81
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) December 26, 2018
While that nearly $20 million was lost as a result of technical difficulties which forced Turner and Bleacher Report to stream The Match for free and refund paying customers, the financial damage to the event was mitigated by the title sponsor, Capital One, and other backers.
Going forward, the Woods-Mickelson matches will likely be a little different than what was seen on the Friday after Thanksgiving. A team match is “almost a certainty,” the source told Shedlowski. The report stated that Woods and Mickelson would likely team up, but there is still a possibility the two superstars would bring in a teammate of their choosing to compete against one another in a different format.
No dates, pricing or locations have been announced at this time, but every indication is that November’s match was only the first of what will prove to be golf’s latest foray into a made-for-television series.
