One of the most dramatic final rounds in Masters history delivered a multi-year viewership high for CBS.
Sunday’s final round of the Masters, won by Rory McIlroy in a playoff over Justin Rose, averaged 12.99 million viewers on CBS — up 35% from Scottie Scheffler’s win last year (9.59M) and the highest for the final round of the tournament since Patrick Reed won in 2018 (13.03M). The previous high was an Easter-inflated audience of 12.06 million for Jon Rahm’s win two years ago.
Keep in mind that Nielsen did not include out-of-home viewing in its viewership estimates until 2020 and did not do so in 100 percent of markets until earlier this year.
McIlroy’s dramatic victory peaked with 19.90 million from 7-7:15 PM ET, the highest peak quarter-hour of the Masters since 2013, when Adam Scott’s playoff win peaked with 19.92M.
While the average minute audience increased 35 percent, the peak quarter-hour increased a disproportionate 56% from last year’s 12.56 million — an indication that this year’s audience had an unusually strong ‘pop’ at the end.
The peak quarter-hour exceeded the average minute audience by 53 percent, considerably higher than last year (+31%) and the biggest gap since Tiger Woods’ 2019 victory — which peaked with 18.3 million, 69 percent higher than the average minute audience of 10.8 million. (Comparisons to Woods’ 2019 win are complicated not only by the lack of out-of-home viewing in 2019, but also by a special early morning timeslot due to inclement weather.)
After viewership declined double-digits for the opening two rounds on ESPN, which averaged 2.29 and 3.06 million viewers (down 28 and 17 percent respectively from last year), the two weekend rounds increased on CBS.
In addition to Sunday’s final round high, Saturday’s third round audience of 7.62 million increased 16 percent from last year. (The third round figure excludes an extra ‘bonus’ hour of coverage at 2 PM ET; with that included, the CBS audience of 6.95 million was up 5 percent from last year’s shorter window.)
