Joel Dahmen, Marshawn Lynch On The Call For Netflix's First-Ever Live Sporting Event
Netflix's first-ever live sporting event, the Netflix Cup, will pair four F1 drivers with four PGA Tour players—a natural debut given their two smash hit docuseries with Drive to Survive and Full Swing. The drivers will be in town because the first-ever Las Vegas Grand Prix is next Saturday, Nov. 18, and the golfers have plenty of time on their schedule with this being the dead period before the PGA Tour picks back up in earnest come January.
The matchups for the event, which is set for 6 pm EST/3pm PST at the Wynn Golf Club in Las Vegas, are as follows:
Lando Norris and Rickie Fowler vs. Carlos Sainz and Justin Thomas
Alex Albon and Max Homa vs. Pierre Gasly and Collin Morikawa
Each foursome will play an eight-hole match with some "surprise challenges" interspersed. The two winning teams will advance to a sudden-death ninth hole. All that sounds relatively familiar given all the editions of "The Match" that we've seen before. What's more interesting about this shindig—besides, of course, where it's airing—is the crew of announcers, none of which have much of a golf broadcasting background.
There's comedian Bert Kresicher; sports broadcaster Kay Adams; PGA Tour player Joel Dahmen, who continues to reap the benefits of his appearance on Full Swing; and Marshawn Lynch. Yes, Beast Mode will be live on the call for Netflix's first live sporting event. It'll be interesting to see how Netflix wants this event to look and sound. Both Full Swing and Drive to Survive are fly-on-the-wall type documentaries; they don't bleep out words or sugar coat anything. That's obviously in stark contrast to the cable TV golf specials we've seen in the past, which have involved trash talking but all of the PG variety.
It'll also be an interesting test-run for the golfers, all four of whom are signed up to participate in Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy's TGL simulator league, which begins in January. The success of those broadcasts, like this one, will depend largely on how entertaining the players are in this semi-casual setting. It's nice to see golf as a whole, and the golfers themselves, lean into the "we're entertainers" mindset.