Tiger Woods Match-Play Against Phil Mickelson Could Break Pay-Per-View Records

$9 million will be on the line when golf legends Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson go head-to-head later this year. The match-play match-up will be held on November 23 and feature an 18-hold duel between the duo of fan favorites.

Yet, the winner may be WarnerMedia, which secured the worldwide media rights to the unique event. It will use those rights to feature it as a pay-per-view event distributed through Turner Sports’ B/R Live, AT&T’s DIRECTV, AT&T U-verse and other on-demand platforms.

The event also seems to be somewhat of a coming out party for the newly acquired Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) by AT&T.

“This one-of-a-kind, winner-take-all matchup provides a great opportunity to show fans the benefits of AT&T and WarnerMedia coming together,” says Turner President David Levy. “For the first time since AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner (now WarnerMedia), Turner, DirecTV and HBO will present a multi-faceted presentation of the live event and accompanying content across a vast array of platforms.”

If they wanted to show the power of a combined entity leveraging newer technology, then this is it. Pay-per-view numbers could eclipse that of Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor, which boasted a total of $4.3 million pay-per-view buys in the U.S. That was the second largest buy ever, behind Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao in 2015, which had 4.6 million buyers.

Pay-per-view pricing has not yet been disclosed.

A unique feature that adds excitement to the match-up is that Woods and Mickelson are promised to make side-challenges during the round. These challenges may include long-drive and closet-to-the-pin contests. Without a doubt, sports betting operators are interested in taking action for the winner of the event, but also on in-match prop bets such as those suggested above.