Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy came up with their brainchild TGL to attract a young audience. Now this means less time for events to conclude, right? The motive of the new league was to do the same – finishing rounds in just 2 hours. But is it sticking by? Not really. The fourth match featuring both the teams of the founders was scheduled for January 27, from 6:30 pm. But it had to take in extra time because of a tie.

On the 15th hole, Keegan Bradley went up first and left the ball 26 feet from the hole. Tom Kim, who had been a star that night, surpassed that mark by a considerable margin. After Kevin Kisner narrowly missed the hole, Jupiter Links took the first two points and clinched the match on this exciting night of TGL golf. While this turned out to be a victory for Tiger Woods on the course, was it the same off the course?

The Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball team is back in Durham to play the N.C. State Wolfpack on Monday (8:30 p.m., ESPN) at Cameron Indoor Stadium in a Tobacco Road rivalry game. Now both the events are featured on ESPN, and overtime for TGL meant a delay of the Duke Basketball game. This is the second time this has been happening.

And as it turns out, while TGL has been doing amazing, these blunders have caused the NBA fans to get furious with the league.

The NBA fans take a dig at TGL

TGL as mentioned by Rory McIlroy is golf reimagined. It is very different from the conventional game. With an indoor setup and a full tech-savvy field, it defies the norms of the game. While the new format has gotten a lot of fans excited and has even taken viewership rates higher, a lot of them have been criticizing it for not abiding by the regular rules.

Taking to this, people left comments like, “What is this half-real golf, half virtual golf SoFi stadium Tiger Woods thing on ESPN messing up the start of my Duke game?!” and “Looks like the game will likely start on ESPNEWS because the fake golf is on again”. One of them simply questioned, “@espn  where is the Duke basketball game vs NC State”.

The golf world has already been tattered ever since the rival league LIV Golf came in. Fans have been accusing things of being only political rather than a good game. The creation of another league has probably led to more discourse, and that is not what they demand. Furious about the current situation, one of them even commented, “Get this golf off my screen, it’s time for Duke!”

This is not the first time TGL caused delays for college basketball. The college hoops matchup was set to air on the network’s primary channel at 9 pm ET, immediately following Woods’s debut match in his new indoor golf venture, TGL. However, Jupiter Links’s clash against Los Angeles Golf Club ran 20 minutes over its two-hour weekly slot. Despite the match having long been over, with Woods’s team suffering a beatdown from Los Angeles, ESPN chose to continue showing the simulator showdown rather than switching to the Hurricanes’s game against Duke.

The college basketball game instead tipped off on ESPN News, leaving fans furious. ESPN eventually switched to the Miami-Duke game at 9:20 pm ET — 20 minutes after it was originally scheduled to begin — with the Blue Devils already leading 9-5. Taking to this, one of them commented, “They got Wii golf delaying the Duke game AGAIN”.

What are your thoughts about the colliding ESPN timings? Let us know in the comments section below!