Even the first - and arguably the most prestigious - Major of the men's professional golf season could not prevent a significant slide in the Year-on-Year TV viewing figures, according to data relating to CBS Sports' coverage of The Masters.
Despite all of the best players from each of the top tours being in attendance, a thrilling week of action heading towards a tense conclusion, and the World's No.1 holding off a Ryder-Cup-style leaderboard, still Sunday was unable to compete with its predecessor in 2023.
Scottie Scheffler's four-stroke victory to claim his second Green Jacket, managed courtesy of almost video-game golf, was not enough to draw the size of audience previously seen by American broadcasters.
According to Sports Business Journal's Josh Carpenter, "golf viewership continues to drop." In a post on social media, he revealed that "CBS [Sports] drew 9.589M viewers for the final round of the Masters on Sunday" - a figure that was down 20% from last year.
Adding further context, Carpenter said that Scheffler's victory was "the second-largest deficit of the season" for CBS and the "lowest final round since 2021" when "9.450M tuned in for Hideki Matsuyama's win."
Golf viewership continues to drop: CBS drew 9.589M viewers for the final round of the Masters on Sunday, down 20% from last year. Scottie Scheffler's four-shot win was the second-largest deficit of the season.Lowest final round since 2021 (9.450M for Hideki Matsuyama's win) pic.twitter.com/gZsrJ1ZUamApril 16, 2024
Further data from Carpenter showed that "coverage peaked at 12.562M viewers from 7:00-7:15 as Scheffler wrapped up his round." while the American broadcaster averaged just 8.210M across Saturday and Sunday.
Taking into account those who were watching on phones and tablets outside of homes, the SBJ reporter shared that "CBS earned a 21% out-of-home bump last year due to it being Easter Sunday. That number was only 8% this year."
On a brighter note, ESPN reported that its first two days of Masters coverage attracted the best average viewership for its 3pm ET telecasts in six years.
According to the broadcaster, there was an average audience of 3.4 million over Thursday and Friday, with 3.2 million tuning into coverage of Thursday’s first round and that figure swelling to 3.6 million on Friday, when 15-time Major winner Tiger Woods completed 23 holes after thunderstorms delayed the start of the tournament.
The Friday numbers represented a 69% increase from 2023 when 2.1 million watched as LIV's Brooks Koepka led the way at the top of the leaderboard.
Almost certainly the most concerning trend to one part of professional golf right now is the growing lack of interest in PGA Tour events, with almost every tournament producing a notable drop in audience figures - often between 10-20%, although Peter Malnati's victory at the Valspar suffered from a 27% dip when compared to the year before.
Speaking ahead of the Valero Texas Open, Rory McIlroy admitted he was concerned about the pattern.
He said: “I know this isn’t a be-all, end-all, but if you look at the TV ratings of the PGA Tour this year, they’re down 20 percent across the board. That’s a fifth. That’s big.
“That’s where I said like things need a correction and things are unsustainable because I’m close with NBC and the people that really care about these things and the people that tune in to watch golf. You know, 20% is a pretty jarring number this year.
"I would say the numbers on LIV aren’t great either in terms of the people tuning in. I just think with the fighting and everything that’s went on over the past couple years, people are just getting really fatigued of it and it’s turning people off men’s professional golf, and that’s not a good thing for anyone.”
Yet, the Valero Texas Open actually turned out to be a rare week of respite for TV bosses after Akshay Bhatia and Denny McCarthy's showdown helped to produce a 21% spike in the right direction.
McIlroy went on to say that data from the four Major championships would give a more accurate reflection of how strong the interest in golf truly is at the moment, but warned that a fast resolution to the PGA Tour-LIV Golf League battle must be achieved if the sport is to not thrive but simply survive.
The Northern Irishman said: “It’s going to be really interesting to see how the four major championships do, or even the three because put Augusta aside, I think that sort of lives in its own world.
“It will be really interesting to see how the major championship numbers fare compared to the other bigger events because there’s an argument to be made if the numbers are better and you’ve got all the best players in the world playing, then there’s an argument to say ‘OK, we need to get this thing back together.’
“But on the flip side, if the numbers aren’t as good, it’s an argument to still say we need to put everyone back together because people are losing interest in the game even if they don’t want to tune in to the four major championships.”
