This year’s Masters saw plenty of challenges, especially from weather that altered round times. But the final round, which didn’t actually have its time moved, wound up doing very good numbers for CBS. In fact, its average of 12.058 million viewers was not just up 19 percent from 2022, it was the most-viewed round of golf on any network since the 2018 Masters final round:
CBS Sports' Masters Marathon delivers 16.251 million combined total viewers on CBS for coverage of Sunday's Third and Final Rounds.
Details: https://t.co/pusqP8aDYm pic.twitter.com/HMs7WuFAKl— CBS Sports PR (@CBSSportsGang) April 11, 2023
The “16.251 million combined total viewers” there is just addition of the average of 4.193 million viewers for the third round early Sunday with the 12.058 million for the final round. It’s the final round number alone that’s really impressive. And that’s further impressive considering that ESPN’s coverage of the first round Thursday actually saw a year-over-year drop from 2.9 million to 2.5 million average viewers, although that was still the second-best number in five years. So the tournament picked up some ratings steam as time went on.
It’s interesting to see numbers that strong for the final round. There certainly was some drama there, including Phil Mickelson’s seven-under 65 that saw him finish tied for second with Brooks Koepka (who shot a three-over 75 in the final round), and eventual winner Jon Rahm’s three-under final round that saw him win by four strokes. There was also the overarching LIV Golf-PGA Tour tension, with eventual winner Rahm from the PGA Tour, but second-place finishers Koepka and Mickelson from LIV Golf. And there were plenty of notable moments on the media side as well, including CBS announcer Jim Nantz’s “on The CW” line about Koepka and his explanation of “vamos.” That all seems to have added up to good numbers for CBS.
[Paramount Press Express; photo of Rahm receiving his green jacket from Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.