By AAGD Staff
It didn’t take long for Turner Sports executives to come up with a solution to refund customers who paid $19.99 to view the highly promoted pay-per-view of “The Match”, a live golf competition between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson that ran on last Friday. So, in dolling out the refunds, it now seems that Turner may not gain any broadcasting revenues from golf’s first pay-per-view broadcast that was marred by technical difficulties.
On Saturday night, the broadcaster issued a statement acknowledging that it would be issuing refunds for those who paid to view the stream on Bleacher Report Live.
Among carriers who announced that they would not charge customers who paid were Comcast, Charter Spectrum, Cox Communications, Dish/Sling TV and AT&T — via its DirecTV and U-Verse platforms –saying, customers would receive either refunds or credits back to their accounts. Other carriers who have not yet made refund decisions is Cablevision and Verizon.
In a statement, Turner said, “The Match was a historic event, from Tiger’s opening tee shot to Phil’s final putt,” “Prior to the start of the event, we experienced a technical issue with the B/R Live paywall page that we tried to quickly resolve.”
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“We decided to take down the paywall to ensure that fans who already purchased the event would not miss any action. This did not impact the live streaming of the competition and fans were treated to an event that was both engaging and memorable. Unfortunately, the prematch technical issue did occur, and we will offer fans who purchased the event on B/R Live a refund.”
Baffled fans who visited the Bleacher Report Live webpage minutes before the event ended up seeing a landing page that didn’t give them the opportunity to purchase the event. The broadcast was already streaming at no cost. Confused, of course, because the pay-per-view event had been widely promoted.
At one point, according to the Associated Press, there were more than 500 people holding online and waiting for assistance.
The pay-per-view event was won by Phil Mickelson who walked away with $9 million following a birdie on the 22nd hole.
