Adam Scott’s thrilling Masters victory on Sunday in a sudden-death playoff against 2009 Masters champion Angel Cabrera at Augusta was the highest rated final round of the Masters in 12 years for CBS.
According to Nielsen, the 10.2/21 for Sunday’s final round was up 26 percent from last year.
In addition, an estimated 37.4 million viewers watched the final round, where Scott became the first Australian to ever win the Masters. And those numbers were up 13% from last year.
The good ratings news did not stop there. Weekend viewership increased by 13% from last year on CBS, and the controversy surrounding the controversial two-shot penalty on Tiger Woods added to the intrigue–and interest.
And ESPN, which televised parts of the first two rounds on Thursday and Friday, recorded record ratings on Friday. The network’s Masters coverage was “the highest rated and most-viewed Friday performance for the sports network, and drew the fourth-best golf viewership ever on cable television.”
These numbers are more proof that in the fragmented television world, live sporting events continue to deliver reliably strong ratings.