WarnerMedia Acquires Worldwide Media Rights For “The Match”

Courtesy: WarnerMedia

Two titans of the golf world are set to go toe-to-toe, and WarnerMedia and Turner Sports have secured worldwide media rights to the one-on-one golf greats.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will face off in a champions cup of sorts on November 23 at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, Nevada.  The two-man tournament, dubbed “The Match” will be hosted by MGM Resorts International.

“The Match” will be broadcast exclusively via Turner’s B/R Live, Turner Sports’ new premium live sports streaming service, AT&T’s DIRECTV, AT&T U-verse and other on-demand platforms with the newly secured media rights. B/R Live can be accessed by downloading the B/R Live app via iTunes, Google Play, the Roku platform and Amazon Fire TV.

As an additional bonus, Bleacher Report’s House of Highlights will present in-depth highlights and behind-the-scenes content in connection to “The Match.”

Turner International will carry coverage of “The Match” overseas. If all of that is not enough for fans, the media rights deal will allow TNT to carry select content from “The Match” in the weeks following the landmark showdown.

To top everything off, HBO Sports’ 18-time Emmy Award-winning 24/7 will offer its own coverage leading up to “The Match.”

David Levy, President of Turner, discussed the new media rights deal in a recent interview, saying that “The Match” was a positive way to exhibit WarnerMedia’s broadcast capabilities.

“The iconic Tiger Woods and five-time Major Champion Phil Mickelson are generational talents who have transcended the game of golf and their rivalry continues to be one of the most compelling in sports,” Levy said.  “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.  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.”

Turner Sports will produce all of the event’s live coverage while also serving as its exclusive sales and sponsorship partner.  Turner Sports and its Turner Ignite Sports will work together with their marketing partners to highlight their brands.

More information on Turner Sports’ and WarnerMedia’s coverage of “The Match” is available online now at:

 

Website: http://www.turner.com, http://www.warnermediagroup.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/turnerbroadcasting, http://www.facebook.com/WarnerMediaGroup

Twitter: http://twitter.com/turner, http://twitter.comwarnermediagrp

 

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Open Championship A Ratings Win For ESPN

Courtesy: ESPN

This past weekend’s broadcast of the Open Championship on ESPN and the ESPN family of networks set a new cable viewership record for the network.  The final round of play from 8am – 1:30pm brought the network a U.S. rating of 3.1 with a total of four million three hundred and seventy-two thousand viewers.  That number tied the network’s rating set in the final round of 2012’s Open Championship for a cable telecast of the event.  It surpassed last year’s total viewership of four million, seven hundred and seventy-two thousand viewers.  Sunday’s overall coverage of the Open Championship third round is the third highest-rated coverage for of all golf telecasts on cable.  It comes in third behind the 2008 U.S. Open playoff 2010 Masters first round.  The coverage in question was the match in which golf phenom Tiger Woods had returned after his cheating scandal.  Saturday’s overall coverage ranks ninth overall in the numbers of cable golf coverage.

Saturday’s broadcast from 9am – 2:47pm earned ESPN a 2.7 U.S. house hold rating, averaging three million seven hundred and seventy-six thousand viewers.  That beat out 2012’s third round coverage rating of 2.6 U.S. household rating with three million five hundred and forty-five thousand viewers.  This year’s rating marks the highest-rated and highest-viewed coverage of the third-round of the Open Championship for ESPN.

 ABC also performed well in its encore broadcast of the championship over the weekend.  It pulled in a 1.4 rating, up from 2012’s 1.3 in metered market ratings.  Sunday’s telecast pulled a 1.6 metered market rating.  That was even with last year’s broadcast. 

Ratings for ESNP’s digital coverage of the Open Championship were also up across the board.  That includes ESPN.com, Fantasy, Mobile ESPN Web, ScoreCenter, and WatchESPN.  ESPN.com’s Golf section saw an average of 890,000 daily unique visitors over the weekend.  That’s up twenty-two percent.  It saw an average minutes per day of nine point three million minutes per day on the section.  That is an increase of sixty-five percent. 

In its mobile coverage, ESPN mobile web averaged seven point six million minutes per day during the Championship.  That is an increase of thirty-two percent.  The Golf section on the ScoreCenter app averaged four hundred and thirteen thousand daily unique visitors.  This is an increase of one hundred and seven percent.  It saw an average of two million minutes per day (up one hundred and five percent).  Solidifying ESPN’s digital coverage, the combined numbers from WatchESPN and ESPN3 pulled in seventy-four point eight million total minutes through the Championship, up twenty-one percent compared to 2012’s coverage of the Open Championship. 

ESPN’s television golf telecasts of the Open Championship hold nine of the ten positions, including the top five. 

For all the latest from ESPN, go online to http://www.facebook.com/ESPN or http://www.espn.com.

To keep up with all of the latest sports and entertainment news and reviews, go online to http://www.facebook.com/philspicks and “Like” it.  Fans can keep up with all of the latest sports and entertainment news and reviews in the Phil’s Picks blog at https://philspicks.wordpress.com.