A strong showing by a number of high-profile LIV Golf renegades at the 87th Masters Tournament appears to have done wonders for CBS’ ratings.
According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, Sunday’s final round averaged 12.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched golf broadcast since 2018. That same year, CBS averaged a hair north of 13 million viewers at Augusta as future PGA Tour defector Patrick Reed edged Rickie Fowler by a stroke to win his first (and only) major.
Sunday’s audience peaked at some 15 million viewers during the 7 p.m.-7:15 p.m. EDT quarter-hour, as Jon Rahm clinched the Green Jacket with a par-salvaging coda on the 18th hole. Rahm, who had begun the round trailing LIV’s Brooks Koepka by two strokes, broke away from the field on the back nine. In so doing, he bested Koepka and a history-making Phil Mickelson; the 52-year-old shot a blistering 65 on Sunday, which now stands as the lowest round at the Masters for a golfer age 50-plus.
Rahm managed to keep three LIV stalwarts at bay, topping Koepka and Mickelson by four strokes and Reed by five. Behind Rahm, the tourney’s top PGA Tour player was Jordan Spieth, who tied Reed for fourth place.
Rahm pocketed $3.24 million for his troubles, while Augusta was spared the unsightly optics of having to bestow golf’s most hallowed “trophy”—a $250 wool blazer—upon the shoulders of one of the voluntary exiles. All told, 18 LIV golfers descended on Augusta National, with 12 making the cut.
While LIV’s strong showing may have contributed to CBS’ big Sunday-afternoon audience, it remains to be seen how Greg Norman’s troupe manages over the course of its first post-Masters outing. Australia’s Grange Golf Club will host the next LIV tournament from April 21 to 23, but if the first few packets of Nielsen numbers are anything to go by, the CW’s deliveries aren’t likely to raise any eyebrows.
On March 19, the final round of LIV’s second tournament averaged just 274,000 viewers, or 11% of what NBC scared up that same day with its coverage of the PGA Tour’s Valpar Championship (2.59 million). The LIV’s premiere outing on the CW culminated on Sunday, Feb. 26, with an average delivery of 291,000 viewers, which itself was dwarfed by its primetime lead-out. In the 8 p.m. slot, back-to-back repeats of the CW’s World’s Funniest Animals averaged 454,000 viewers.
