philmickelson Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
LIV Golf’s CW premiere was so bad it couldn't even beat out <i>World's Funniest Animals</i>
Last week, sports outlets spent an inordinate amount of words on the NBA All-Star Game’s poor ratings. The telecast came in with 4.39 million viewers, a sizable drop from 2022 when 6.28 million people tuned in. Well, LIV Golf’s TV debut on the CW drew 291,000 fans on Sunday, which was 5,000 better t...
Tiger Woods’ joke wasn’t just sexist, it was prop comedy
If Tiger Woods thought the “joke” he made after teeing off on the ninth hole at Riviera Country Club on Thursday was appropriate, he wouldn’t have been so sly about it. Golf fans needed a telephoto lens to catch it, but once they figured out, it was widely shared, celebrated, or disparaged, and then...
![LIV Golf secures TV deal with the CW because that’s what it’s come to [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/893e770a49bf9a7193aef3ab95eb5754.jpg)
LIV Golf secures TV deal with the CW because that’s what it’s come to [Updated]
The LIV Golf tour may finally have a broadcast partner, and it’s every bit as bootleg as you’d imagine for a league that stays putting the cart before the horse. According to reports, the Saudi-funded golf league is nearing a deal with the CW. Yes, that’s right. The network that brought you The Flas...
What were the best and worst sports trends in 2022?
As 2023 approaches, it gives media outlets opportunities to do wrap-ups, year-end lists, and rank anything else in the timeframe of the past 12 months. It’s really the only upside of time being arbitrary and a construct of people in power to make sure the plebeians arrive at the salt mines at 9 a.m....
Saudi Golf may have found, err, paid for a broadcast partner
How’s the saying go? You couldn’t pay me to watch (blank)? Well, it turns out the LIV Golf traveling circus/Saudi Arabia vanity project might just have to pay to get people to watch. With no major sports network bidding to air their rancid product, the upstart golf league reportedly is closing in on...
Gary Player struggling to figure out how the internet works
The thing about the internet is it’s permanent. Scrub all you want, but no amount of skin grafts or laser removal is getting rid of that Kottonmouth Kings tattoo. While you can have an expert ink over it in hopes that no one notices, your asshole friends definitely have documented evidence of its ex...
Now that the PGA season is over, the Saudi Tour has the spotlight to itself — D'oh!
The PGA Tour season is over, and the only PGA-sanctioned event left on the calendar is the President’s Cup, which Saudi Tour golfers are ineligible to play. Cam Smith won’t be included, despite qualifying for the international team, and neither will the other five golfers who announced their move a ...
Oh, wow, a sport obsessed with stats finally realizes numbers are marketable
If you’re reading a post about baseball to start your Thursday morning procrastinating there’s a good chance that at some point in your life you’ve been at a bar with one of those punching bag machines. You know what I’m talking about, it looks like a huge speed bag and you put in a dollar or whatev...
And, voila, Cameron Smith’s charisma is gone
We’ve reached a point where a golfer has to take a blood oath on their mother’s grave while stabbing a voodoo doll of Greg Norman for me to believe that any of these amoral sociopaths are staying with the PGA Tour. My hopes weren’t high for Cameron Smith, the young Australian who just won the Open C...
They’re all losers
I know I’m not alone in saying that I can’t help but laugh at the whole PGA-LIV fight, which took a new turn yesterday as the incredibly aggrieved golfers who have been banned from the PGA Tour for defecting to the Blood Money Laundering “R” Us sued the PGA Tour. It’s a whole thing to watch one batc...
The new baseball killed Joey Gallo
Joey Gallo has been one of baseball’s weirdest hitters for his entire career. He was something of the poster boy for the new approach to hitting, which was only developed as a counter to the devil magic that more and more pitchers were equipped with. Lift the ball, drive it, and the easiest way to d...
What if the Saudis come for tennis next?
Let’s paint a picture for a moment. It’s two, maybe three years from now. The Saudi Golf League has taken off, gotten its sponsorships and TV deals, and superstar commitments. It’s expanded its tournaments, the majors are now allowing defectors to return, and — all in all, it’s a success....
PGA breathes easier as Collin Morikawa says he’s staying
This morning’s rumor mill may have proven that the PGA Tour is resting on a more delicate balance than we’d all like to pretend. Brooks Koepka’s departure surprised absolutely nobody — he can’t stay away from beating Bryson for that long, and he also gave the shadiest and vaguest possible responses ...
In a sport of polite claps, the boos were never going to be loud enough to disrupt LIV golfers
Phil Mickelson slid out of the U.S. Open on the oil slick he oozed in on not a penny richer from his appearance in Brookline, Mass. He missed the cut after a 3-over round Friday that put him at +11 after 36 holes, and if you don’t make it to the final two days of the tournament, you don’t get a cent...
Phil Mickelson tries to justify joining LIV tour (again), fails (again)
Phil Mickelson is facing the golf media in the lead-up to this weekend’s U.S. Open, and suffice it to say: it isn’t pretty. It’s not that the LIV press conferences have exactly gone easy on the defecting golfers, but the press has faced more moderation and censorship from people who have also been p...
When does sportswashing come for an American team?
The story of the weekend was the LIV Golf…whatever, or LIV Golf Whatever, finally going from theory or proposal to the real thing. Even complete with the suppression of the press, which is an astonishingly good look for a company funded by a government that is mostly known for suppressing the press ...
Will LIV golfers be allowed at Augusta?
The LIV tour is live. The lines have been drawn and the hammers thrown down, and Charl Schwartzel has taken home the first ever LIV win in London, and yet with each declaration from a defecting golfer or a pissed-off PGA exec, more and more questions arise. The biggest one on everyone’s minds right ...
Where in the world is the LIV PR team?
With all that money they’ve been throwing around, you’d think that LIV Golf could hire a better PR team for all their new players....
Long Live the LIV?
The LIV Invitational Golf Series has been a drag on a PGA Tour that was already flailing to find its next superstar. LIV, which is funded by blood money from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has sparked a mini-exodus of several PGA stars. By offering boatloads of cash for appearance fees, LIV ha...
The price was right: Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and other pros sell out to Saudi-backed LIV Golf
Just about everyone has a price tag. LIV Golf is trying to figure out what that price tag looks like for the biggest names in their sport. Greg Norman, the CEO of the new government-funded Saudi tour, claimed that LIV offered Tiger Woods a number in the “high nine figures” to come play for them, des...