UPDATE: Some – but not all – viewers irate that the $19.95 PPV golf match between Tiger Wood and Phil Mickeleson that they paid for was also available for free will get a refund.
Comcast has announced it will return money to its customers after an uproar that the match was available as a free event on Bleacher Report. The $9 million winner-take-all match was held yesterday in Las Vegas, with Mickelson winning.
“Comcast will proactively issue a $19.99 credit to any Xfinity TV customer who purchased ‘The Match’ pay-per-view event,” the company statement said. “We hope Turner and Bleacher Report will do the same given that the event was made available by them for free on The Bleacher Report website.”
Also granting refunds are AT&T (home of DirecTV and U-Verse), Charter Spectrum, Cox Communications and Dish/Sling TV, according to reports.
Turner executives said they made the event free when their PPV site’s purchase function broke down and denied access to the match to paying customers.
EARLIER: The PPV match play between golfers Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson has angered fans who paid $19.95 to see it. As it turns out, it was streaming for free on the Bleacher Report website.
The event was sold by Turner as a multi-platform pay-per-view event. However, match promoters claimed the PPV site’s purchase function was overwhelmed and broke, so those who had purchased access had trouble getting in. That allegedly led to the decision to make it a free event.
However, the Woods/Mickelson event was available for free at its start, and there is no information on what point the decision was made to move it to free.
Turner confirmed the glitch on PPV, but didn’t comment on the Bleacher Report Issue. “We experienced some technical issues on B/R Live that temporarily impacted user access to The Match. We’ve taken a number of steps to resolve the matter, with our main priority being the delivery of content to those that have purchased the PPV event.”
Woods and Mickelson are playing a $9 million winner-take-all match at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas.
Mickelson was 1-up through nine holes and was leading Woods $300,000 to $200,000 in side-bet money. Mickelson won two closest-to-the-pin bets on the front nine.
Woods got $200,000 off Mickelson after the lefty failed to birdie the first hole.
