Alan Sawyer
Tiger Woods may not have taken home a green jacket but he helped television networks pull in plenty of green this weekend with his return to The Masters.
Videos by Rare
Fueled by fan interest stemming from his return from injury certainly, his performance into the weekend made for a winner in the marketplace.
CBS’ final round coverage averaged 10.17 million viewers. That marked the highest for any golf telecast since the final day of the same event in 2019 — which, not coincidentally, was the last time Woods won the event.
ESPN — which had coverage rights for the first two rounds of the Masters — averaged 3.3 million viewers, the most for its Master’s coverage since 2018, the network said. Its viewership peaked at 4.6 million while Woods was finishing up his second round on Saturday, according to the Nielsen rankings.
According to the ratings, CBS led the broadcast networks last week in prime time, averaging 4.2 million viewers. ABC was second with 3.6 million, NBC third at 3 million, and Fox closed the major four networks with 1.7 million.
Fox News Channel led the cable networks, averaging 2.32 million viewers, where as TBS had 1.52 million, TNT had 1.2 million, HGTV had 1.17 million, and ESPN had 1.13 million.
