Jim Nantz will be on the air for an additional hour during CBS’s coverage of the 2025 Masters.
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Behind all of Augusta National’s claims to have a green jacket lies a strange truth.
There is no televised golf event – and perhaps no televised event in Professional sports — that is as accessible as the Masters. While the tournament revels in its well-deserved aura of exclusivity, consuming The Masters is approaching PBS’ comfort level. While the tournament traditionally airs for just nine weekend hours on CBS (a pittance by PGA Tour standards), cameras record every second of tournament week and broadcast coverage on the Masters’ free digital and mobile apps.
This is perhaps why golf audiences each year have only lukewarm criticism of the Masters’ comparatively limited TV time slot. Of course, it would be nice to see more of the Masters on CBS, but it’s not that hard to see the action just about anywhere else.
Fortunately, even the loudest critics will have one less reason to complain in 2025. On Tuesday, Augusta National and CBS announced an additional five hours of TV coverage of the first golf major of the new year, including an additional hour of weekend television coverage in the network’s Saturday afternoon slot.
The bulk of the expansion will take place on Saturdays on CBS, which will now broadcast from 2-7 p.m. ET on both weekend days, bringing the network’s total number of televised hours to 10. The network will also receive two additional hours of streaming coverage on Paramount Plus before CBS’s coverage begins on Saturday and Sunday.
The news gives the Masters its most extensive television schedule yet, the latest development in a decades-long television boom for the reclusive club. Just three decades ago, TV viewers had never even seen Augusta National’s famous “front nine” – now, in what has become almost routine, they are conditioned to expect nonstop coverage across a variety of networks, media and days… with few commercial breaks.
The steady growth of Augusta National’s entertainment offerings has been happening behind the scenes for years, but now golf fans have no reason to look away. The Masters App is considered by many in the sports industry to be the industry standard for entertainment offerings, and in 2024, the club even released the first-ever version of the Masters VR App for use with the Apple Vision Pro headset.
Taken individually, these changes mean little, but taken together they reflect a larger concern for the Masters on television – an effort to bring viewers closer to golf’s biggest event than ever before.
Now we just have to wait six months to see it in action.
