AT&T's WarnerMedia takes big swing with golf's match of the century
When AT&T announced in August that it had acquired the rights to a pay-per-view golf duel between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson on Thanksgiving weekend, its rechristened entertainment divisionWarnerMediafaced a challenge: how to create a golf event that would appeal beyond the sport's traditional followers.
"We have an obligation to the hardcore fan and the casual fan," said Craig Barry, chief content officer at Turner Sports, who oversaw the production. The goal, he said in an interview, was to find an inoffensive way to appeal to both.
Easier said than done. Golf viewers are the oldest demographic of any major U.S. sport, with an average age of 64 for PGA Tour events, according to research published last year in Sport Business Journal. But retirement-age duffers aren't the main prize for AT&T, which is using the match to flex new media muscles following its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner.