Rory McIlroy didn’t just win the Masters Tournament for the second consecutive time. He also attracted more fans to watch the major championship. Despite the social media frenzy, CBS is the one ultimately benefiting from the situation.

Josh Carpenter recently shared the numbers with the world through an X post. He revealed that for CBS Sports, the final round at Augusta National (between 2:00 and 7:17 PM ET), the viewership went up to a whopping 13.995 million, the highest number in 11 years. This number includes viewers from Nielsen Big Data and the Panel.

The coverage peaked with a total of 20.049 million viewers on Sunday. Even Saturday’s numbers broke records with more than 8.1 million viewers, the most for the third round since 2019. And that’s the largest peak for the Masters Tournament in 13 years. Meanwhile, Paramount+ witnessed its biggest day for golf on Sunday.

Last year, the coverage averaged 12.990 million viewers. In 2024, with Scottie Scheffler winning the Green Jacket, only 9.589 million people watched the event. 2023 saw 12.058 million viewers watching the event as Jon Rahm claimed the win. Scheffler’s win in 2022 attracted 10.173 million viewers. And Hideki Matsuyama’s win in 2021 attracted only 9.450 million people.

As per ESPN, around 2.7 million people tuned in to watch the Masters Tournament on Thursday, and 3.5 million fans watched the event on Friday. The average viewership for the first two rounds? It was a whopping 3.1 million. And that’s the highest number ESPN witnessed in the past four years.

The fans on X seemed pretty surprised with the numbers. 

One fan confessed, “Actually surprises me this year.” 

Meanwhile, many others couldn’t believe that the numbers went higher for Rory McIlroy than they did for Tiger Woods. Woods has to withdraw from the tournament after his DUI arrest scandal. A fan expressed their surprise and wrote: “WHAT???? Without Tiger???? A new world.”

It’s worth noting that a couple million more fans watched the event in 2018 than in 2019 when Woods won the Masters for the fifth time.

What’s more surprising is the fact that a few days ago, the entire golf community was lashing out at CBS Sports for poor coverage of the Masters. But why?

Why Did People Dislike CBS Sports’ Masters 2026 Coverage? 

On April 14, 2026, as McIlroy and Cameron Young approached the 18th, CBS Sports lost the approach shots. For more than a minute, fans were left in uncertainty regarding the whereabouts of their shots. To make things worse for the network, the Masters’ digital website offered a camera angle showcasing the world number two’s approach shot entering a bunker ahead of the 18th hole.

Later, CBS Sports chose a questionable angle to capture McIlroy’s third shot on the final hole. And McIlroy’s shoes blocked the view, leading to intense backlash on the internet. However, Jim Nantz swooped down to rescue the network.

“It’s live television. We all make mistakes. For the record, the putt was that long. If he had missed it, we would have the all-time story in the history of golf. But I’m really proud of our crew. You’re making so many split-second decisions,” Nantz said.

Additionally, many viewers relying on local channels experienced a massive blackout from CBS Sports. The reason was that E.W. Scripps and Comcast are in a dispute, and people in Nashville were left without any option to watch the Masters.

Yet, the numbers speak for themselves. And if this trend continues, we can actually expect a massive rise in viewership in the near future, regardless of how the coverage is.