On Friday, Tiger Woods faced off against Phil Mickelson in a head-to-head match that was only available via PPV. The match play event which took place at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas was available for $20.
At the start of the match, we reported that customers were able to stream the event for free on their website. It wasn’t clear whether this was intentional or a bug.
Later in the afternoon, Turner announced that due to technical hiccups, they made the stream for free for everyone on their B/R Live website.
As a result, after complaints by cable and satellite providers and their angry customers, Turner announced on Saturday that they would refund all PPV purchases of the event.
The match, which went to extra holes, was thought to be a great test to see if sports other than boxing and UFC could support PPV for unique events. Due to the technical issues and the refunds, we probably won’t know if this is a successful model for the future.