Turner Sports is bringing back its golf exhibition franchise The Match, this time with recent PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson, 2020 U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau, Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady and NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers.
Mickelson and Brady will take on DeChambeau and Rodgers in a match play event on July 6 at Moonlight Basin in Montana. It will be televised on Turner-owned TNT with additional distribution, including a possible streaming option, to be announced at a later date.
This is the latest iteration of Turner’s The Match franchise, which originated as a head-to-head showdown between Mickelson and Tiger Woods but has now evolved into single-round competitions featuring pro golfers and other celebrities. The events, which are sanctioned by the PGA Tour, are generally more accessible and interactive than standard golf broadcasts, with microphones on all the golfers, open trash talk and constant communication between the participants and the announcers.
Though the financial specifics weren’t disclosed, these stand-alone events generate significant money that ends up being shared between just a few participants. While Mickelson won $2.16 million last weekend at the PGA Championship—the largest purse of his PGA Tour career—he took home $9 million from the first version of The Match in 2018.
The business relationships go one step deeper as well. The event is organized by Excel Sports Management, which represents Woods, and Sportfive, the agency that represents Mickelson (Turner’s media agreement is with Sportfive). Live coverage of the event will be produced by Turner in partnership with 199 Productions, Brady’s content company.
A quartet of sponsors are already on board, including Capital One, which has been the title sponsor of previous iterations of The Match. DraftKings, which has a wide-ranging partnership with DeChambeau, will be a gambling and content partner, with Progressive and Autotrader also involved.
Turner Sports is a division of WarnerMedia, which is currently owned by AT&T. Earlier this month AT&T announced a $43 billion deal to spin off WarnerMedia and merge it with Discovery, a combination that could reshape the sports streaming landscape.
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