Jim Nantz will have an extra hour on the air during CBS coverage of the 2025 Masters.
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Underneath all the pretense of Augusta National's green jacket is a funny truth.
There is no televised golf event – and probably no televised event professional sports – that is accessible as Masters. While this competition is navigating a well-earned path of exclusivity, eating the Masters is approaching PBS standards easily. Although the tournament was broadcast for only nine weekend hours on CBS (a pittance by PGA Tour standards), cameras captured every critical second of the tournament week for broadcast over the Masters' suite of free-to-use digital and mobile apps.
That's why, perhaps, the golf community only offers strong criticism of the relatively limited TV window every year. Sure, it would be nice to watch more of the Masters on CBS, but it's not like it's that hard to basically watch the action elsewhere.
Thankfully, even the loudest critics will have one thing few can complain about in 2025. On Tuesday, Augusta National and CBS announced five additional hours of TV coverage from golf's majors in the new year, including an additional hour of televised weekend coverage. window Saturday afternoon Saturday.
The main part of the expansion comes on Saturdays on CBS, which will now air from 2-7 pm ET on both days of the weekend, increasing the number of hours of television on the network to 10. The network will pick up two more. hours of broadcast coverage on Paramount Plus prior to the start of the CBS Saturday and Sunday coverage.
The news gives the Masters its most extensive television program ever, the latest development in what has been decades of televised growth for the popular club. Just three decades ago, television viewers had never seen Augusta National's famous “front nine” – now, in what has become almost a habit, they are conditioned to expect wall-to-wall coverage across networks, mediums and. days … with limited commercial interruptions.
The steady growth of Augusta National's entertainment offerings has continued over the years, but now golf fans have no reason to look away. The Masters App is considered by many within the sports biz to be the industry standard as an entertainment offering, and in 2024 the club even released the first iteration of the Masters VR app, for use with the Apple Vision Pro headset.
In short, these changes mean very little, but all of them speak to something bigger about The Masters on TV – an effort to bring those closer to golf's biggest event than ever before.
Now it's just a matter of waiting six months until we see them in action.
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