All week long, NBC has touted the return of Tiger Woods as reason to tune into its weekend coverage of the Accenture Match Play Championship. Oops.
Woods was eliminated by Tim Clark on Thursday, knocking the biggest star in all of sports out of the Accenture Match Play Championship before the weekend. Woods’ presence was expected to give NBC a major ratings boost for its coverage of the event and was estimated to provide his sponsors $6 million worth of exposure had he played through Sunday.
Despite being knocked out, Woods will still be featured prominently in NBC’s coverage of the event. Earlier this week, NBC producer Tommy Roy said that in the event of Woods’ elimination, the network would “have to deal with showing what happened to Tiger because this has gone from being a golf tournament to a news event.” Roy: “There’s a lot of people who aren’t going to be able to watch his play on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, if he makes it that far. … People tuning in on the weekend, we’ll document whether he’s out or he’s still alive.”
NBC, which is producing The Golf Channel’s coverage of the event, will more than likely re-air parts of Woods’ first and second round matches during its coverage.
