‘The Match’ With Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning Was The Most-Watched Golf Event In Cable History

Awful Announcing – Capital One’s The Match: Champions for Charity was a huge success on Sunday for all involved. The golf event featuring Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning, and [Tom[ Brady raised $20 million for COVID-19 relief.

The Turner Sports live broadcast also delivered tremendous television ratings, averaging 5.8 million viewers across TNT, TBS, TruTV, and HLN. That makes it the most-watched golf event in cable television history, topping the first round of the 2010 Masters on ESPN (4.9 million viewers). The event — which had a delayed start due to rain — peaked with an average of 6.3 million viewers from 5:45 to 6 p.m. ET.

There isn’t always a massive correlation between social media engagement and TV viewers. But if you hopped on Twitter on Sunday, it was hard to escape the foursome of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. There were some quality memorable moments, mostly involving Tom Brady’s lows on the course:

Tom Brady is playing golf like the rest of us. #TheMatch2 https://t.co/pbvnakTVMz

— Off The Clock Sports🎙 (@offclocksports) May 24, 2020

And some unreal highs:

https://twitter.com/LakeShowYo/status/1264675170838409217

Those four guys mic’d up led to some quality moments, including a little Brady smack talk towards Charles Barkley:

Tom Brady hits this insane shot then talks smack to Charles Barkley😂 pic.twitter.com/F9BMeF9bWh

— NBA Retweet (@RTNBA) May 24, 2020

And we even got to see Tom Brady show off that TB12-enhanced booty when he split his pants:

Tom Brady so thicc he’s got a video of him dancing with 1 million views on TikTok pic.twitter.com/Ax9zMV7Net

— Chris Spags (@ChrisSpags) May 24, 2020

So what are the takeaways here for future sports events we may get during COVID times? If you can get four of the most famous athletes of the last few decades together in a well-produced competition with some mic’d up trash talk, people will watch.

Who’s the dream foursome you could throw out there to top that ratings number? I’d bring back Tom Brady and also keep Tiger Woods for the golf competency, sprinkle in a LeBron and dunk it home with the Michael Jordan degenerate gambling the day away way more than one should in a charity game. I love the idea of LeBron and M.J. competing at something other than basketball but you could convince me to swap out LeBron for another fourth even if I wouldn’t change that Brady/Tiger/Jordan base. Maybe Derek Jeter or A-Rod for some baseball exposure and the potentially inappropriate trash talk that would come about their significant others? You just know M.J. wouldn’t be able to keep one inappropriate line from slipping out in the heat of competition.

The Match photo via PGA Tour