McIlroy’s latest victory was most-watched Masters broadcast in over a decade
Rory McIlroy was crowned a Masters champion once again on Sunday, becoming just the fourth golfer in history to win back-to-back titles at Augusta National.
But, it wasn’t an easy task for the Irishman to accomplish. Heading into the final round on Sunday, McIlroy was tied with Cameron Young at 11-under. There were six other golfers, including two-time champion Scottie Scheffler and last year’s runner-up Justin Rose, within four strokes of McIlroy and Young’s score. There was a lot of doubt cast on McIlroy on Sunday as it appeared to be virtually anyone’s green jacket to win.
Because it was such an exciting final round with scores jumping all over the place from the best golfers in the world, casual and diehard golf fans alike tuned in from across the country to see who would be victorious in the end. Sunday’s final round drew in an average of 13.995 million viewers on CBS, an increase of 8% up from last year’s 12.99 million average viewers, Sports Business Journal reported. This is the largest viewership the Masters has seen in 11 years, when Jordan Spieth’s 2015 win brought in 14 million average viewers.
The final round peaked at 20.049 million, the biggest amount since Adam Scott’s 2013 win. Overall, these are good numbers for the CBS broadcast.
There you have it: CBS says the final round of the Masters was its most watched in 11 years with 13.995M viewers (Nielsen Big Data + Panel)
Last year averaged 12.990M (no Big Data added).
Sunday’s peak was at 20.049M, the largest since 2013 pic.twitter.com/BeCx7M8eqV- Josh Carpenter (@JoshACarpenter) April 14, 2026
CBS criticized for final round coverage
It’s interesting to see these high viewership numbers on Tuesday after CBS has been criticized the last two days for its coverage of the final round. Sports Illustrated’s Andy Nesbitt broke down certain moments from McIlroy’s final round in particular in which CBS failed to show some shots, including ones on the final hole.
One of the biggest critiques was how delayed some of the CBS coverage was. The broadcast would show shots that were made nearly 10 minutes prior, leaving viewers at home confused about when certain moments were occurring.
NBC analyst and golfer Kevin Kisner tore into CBS’ broadcast on Tuesday, calling the network out for its major delays in coverage.
“They were literally showing s--- that I knew happened 10 minutes ago all day long,” Kisner said on Barstool Sports’ ForePlay podcast. “What are we doing, man? You have no commercials. Play live shots. … I have no idea what they’re doing. Literally no idea. They’re showing every shot on tape. I don’t even know how the announcers call it. I don’t know how Colt [Knost] can act like he doesn’t know what’s happening when it’s already happened. There were a couple of shots in the two days that were seven to 10 minutes behind. It was unbelievable, dude. I’m not trying to just kill them but being in TV for 30 times and seeing what our production team does it was just fascinating to me.”
CBS’s Jim Nantz, who led the Masters coverage over the weekend, later defended the network and said “we all make mistakes.”
“It’s live television. We all make mistakes,” Nantz said during an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show. “I can’t speak to the difficulty and some of the decision-making, and some of the other things that people are responsible for. I just know that our crew is the best in the business.”
Regardless of the frustration from the broadcast, fans were still coming in droves to watch the action.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy’s 2026 Win Was Most-Watched Masters Broadcast in Over a Decade.
Copyright ABG-SI LLC. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC. All Rights Reserved.
This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 6:45 PM.