Turner Sports joins others, announces customer refunds after ‘The Match’ streamed for free
A.J. Perez
Turner Sports will refund anyone who purchased "The Match" through its B/R Live streaming service, a move announced Saturday night after several major cable and satellite companies told USA TODAY Sports they would reimburse buyers since the event streamed for free.
An issue with the interface for B/R Live began before Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods teed off on Friday. Turner Sports said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports that it "decided to take down the paywall to ensure that fans who already purchased the event would not miss any action."
That decision, however, angered those who paid $20 for an event that many watched for free. Mickelson won the winner-take-all, $9 million event in 22 holes.
"This did not impact the live streaming of the competition and fans were treated to an event that was both engaging and memorable," the Turner Sports statement read. "Unfortunately, the pre-match technical issue did occur, and we will offer fans who purchased the event on B/R Live a refund.”
Comcast was the first major carrier to announce that it would refund customers hours after Mickelson's victory. On Saturday, AT&T — which operates DirecTV and U-Verse — said it would be contacting customers directly to offer refunds, company spokesperson Jim Greer told USA TODAY Sports in an email.
Earlier Saturday, Charter Spectrum, Cox Communications and Dish/Sling TV said in separate statements to USA TODAY Sports that they would do the same.
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The B/R Live feed carried the "The Match" via the B/R Live apps on various streaming platforms such as Apple TV, Google Chromecast and Roku, and through the B/R Live website.
Nicholas Masafumi Watanabe, a sport and entertainment management professor at the University of South Carolina, told USA TODAY Sports that "The Match" would have needed about 700,000 buys to break even. There were no number made available on the number of buyers, who largely will be refunded.
Beyond the $9 million purse, Turner Sports also had production and promotion costs for "The Match." Watanabe said Turner Sports could be out about $10 million, unless there was some kind of insurance policy taken out for what transpired.
"In terms of opportunity cost, they may have lost even more based on the amount of pay-per-view buys they potentially could have had," Watanabe said.
The event was sponsored by Capital One, although the terms of the deal were not made public. Messages left with Capital One by USA TODAY Sports were not returned.
Turner Sports is a new entry into the pay-per-view game, although other prominent players in the segment have suffered similar issues.
“I think that these media companies have to realize there is a risk in holding PPV events,” Watanabe said. “If there is not enough investment into infrastructure and bandwidth needed to stream these events, there is the possibility that consumers may be less-inclined to purchase PPV in the future.”
UFC and the streaming partner it has since purchased, NeuLion, faced a class-action lawsuit after fans who purchased the $100 Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor boxing match were unable to watch the fight. That lawsuit was settled earlier this year, and it allowed up to a full refund to those who signed on to be part of the class action.
DAZN, a streaming service led by former ESPN president John Skipper, had trouble streaming NFL games in Canada and professional soccer in Japan, Watanabe said. It launched in the U.S. earlier this year with eyes on challenging Showtime PPV and HBO PPV in boxing, and it has secured many international streaming rights.
