6 intriguing numbers from Rory McIlroy’s win

Rory McIlroy’s Grand Slam-clinching win at the Masters was, first and foremost, compelling television.

But for those in the business of making compelling television, Rory’s win was also something else: a very, very early Christmas present.

McIlroy’s victory at Augusta National delivered some of the highest golf ratings in recent history for CBS on Sunday afternoon, a 12.7 million average viewer number that served as a major boost over last April’s Scottie Scheffler victory and the highest number for CBS at Augusta National in several years.

Every year, the Masters TV numbers serve as a barometer for pro golf’s overall health, and 2025 was no different. Obviously, the ratings from McIlroy’s once-in-a-generation performance can’t be replicated every week, but the numbers help to inform where golf is — and where it’s headed. So let’s dig into the 6 biggest numbers and what they mean.

12.7 million

The number of average viewers for CBS’s final round at the Masters, the highest for a final round at golf’s first major since 2018 — and a mega-number for CBS fresh off last year’s 9.5 million slump for Scottie Scheffler’s second green-jacket victory.

Where’d the 3 million extra viewers come from? Well, this year’s tournament had the benefit of a heart-stopping finish, a historic accomplishment, and golf’s two highest-wattage stars not named Tiger Woods (Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau). When those things happen, more viewers tend to tune in. (Nielsen’s tweaks to out-of-home measurements surely didn’t hurt, either.)

While it is easy to make any number of uninformed arguments about what these numbers mean in the context of the greater sports and golf landscape, there is little questioning the singular objective reality: This is a big, healthy number for golf on TV. When you talk to people in the industry about golf TV ratings, one of the few universally agreed-upon truths is that big numbers in the majors are good for business. Big numbers in big moments point to golf’s ability to make inroads with casual sports fans. For a moment on Saturday and Sunday, it felt like golf was the sports world’s monoculture, and these TV numbers support that feeling, which is very good news for business.

7 years

The last time a golf broadcast of any kind topped McIlroy’s final round at the Masters on Sunday. While the Masters has clipped 12 million viewers a handful of times over the last half-decade, it has fallen short of the 13 million plateau since the mid-2010s.

19.5 million

The peak audience for CBS’s Masters coverage, arriving in the minutes after McIlroy’s tournament-clinching putt and subsequent weepy walk to the scoring tent. (The peak audience is the average audience during the telecast’s most-watched 15-minute window.)

This is a notably huge number for golf, where peak audiences hold added value due to the length of the telecast. The Masters’ peak numbers tip out a notch higher than CBS’s NFL average for the 2024 season.

While the NFL remains (safely) more popular than the Masters on TV, it’s exceedingly rare to see golf clip football in, well, anything.

1.3 million

The average audience for Sky Sports’ coverage of the Masters’ final round in the United Kingdom, a record number for the international broadcaster, including a peak audience of 1.7 million during McIlroy’s walk, which aired shortly after midnight in the UK. These are the largest golf numbers in Sky Sports history, according to the network.

McIlroy’s name was stamped on all British mail at the beginning of the week, but it seems he’d already visited most of the living rooms in the country by the time Sunday evening rolled around.

5.9 million

The number of average viewers for last year’s U.S. Open final round thriller between Bryson and Rory, less than half of the Masters’ 2025 numbers. That number was also the highest-rated East Coast U.S. Open final round since 2013 — spotlighting the difference between even two of golf’s biggest events, and the importance of a good Masters TV number to the overall health of pro golf.

Triple digits

The percentage growth of Paramount Plus’s year-over-year viewership after the Masters added two additional hours from the Masters on Saturday and Sunday.

CBS treated the Paramount Plus broadcast precisely the same as its network window — with the same production talent, on-air crew, and technicians as the regular final-round telecast. They were rewarded richly, with huge gains for the streamer, and subscriber numbers that surely bumped in lockstep. According to CBS, it was the largest non-NFL sports streaming day for Paramount Plus ever.

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