How many people watched the 2025 Masters? Viewership for Rory McIlroy’s career grand slam win

Going it alone may well be faster but traveling together gets you farther - maybe there’s a lesson to be leaning from that analogy, with regard to the current state of professional golf.

Judging by the viewership data of the Masters Tournament, which concluded Sunday, the message in favor of unity couldn’t be much clearer.

Average viewership figures for CBS’ Masters final day telecast up by a third on last year

CBS reports that the final round, which saw Rory McIlroy join the elite Grand Slam club, averaged 12.7 million viewers which marks a 33% increase compared to those who tuned in to last year’s event. The peak audience, between 7:00 and 7:15 p.m. ET, reached 19.5 million. It was the most-watched golf broadcast across all tournaments and networks in the past seven years. Not since Patrick Reed’s triumph in 2018 had the Masters finale drawn such numbers.

What made this year’s event so compelling? Some of the world’s best golfers—both from the

PGA Tour and LIV Golf—battling for the coveted green jacket. Does the audience care which tour a player represents? Apparently not. A walk through Augusta National on any given day was enough to see Bryson DeChambeau enjoying as much fan support as anyone else. The intense anti-LIV sentiment that arose when the Saudi-backed league first launched appears to have softened significantly.

The core issue remains structural rather than preferential: the PGA Tour, with more than 90 years of history, inherently limits the chances for stars from both tours to compete outside the majors. And as things stand today, the US tour seems just as determined to absorb LIV as the Saudi Public Investment Fund is to keep its ambitious sports project intact.

The solution is simple: return to a shared calendar—if not entirely, at least in a significant way. Bringing together golf’s biggest names more than four times a year would benefit all parties. But the real challenge lies in the details—how to reach a goal that, at least in theory, everyone agrees on. Overcoming these hurdles will be crucial if golf’s rising TV ratings, which contrast with the broader trend of declining sports viewership, are to become the norm rather than an exception.

Masters television audience figures in steady decline

The audience figures will be welcomed by CBS who have seen viewer numbers for the Masters drop year on year. Last year’s final round drew and average of 9.59 million, down 20% year-over-year, although the fact that it aired on Easter Sunday was a contributory factor. In 2010, an average audience of 16.7 million tuned in to watch Phil Mickelson win the title for the third time.

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