Sunday’s dramatic Rory McIlroy Masters 2025 win delivered the golfer a career grand slam. It also led Sky Sports to have its most-watched day ever. In total, 7.5 million people tuned into Sky Sports linear channels on Sunday. Presumably more watched via streaming services like NOW and Sky Go.
Between 6am and 2am, Sky Sports had an average audience of 1.3 million. That gave it 19% of total TV viewing. Most pleasing to execs (and their adsales team) will be that the channels picked up 39% of the under-35 audience. Those two percentages are higher than the share obtained by any of the terrestrial broadcasters.
Rory McIlroy Masters Victory Steals the Show
There was a wide range of sports on across the channels during the course of the day. This included Liverpool v West Ham and Newcastle v Man Utd in the Premier League, the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix and Indian Premier League cricket. Those are all popular events in and of themselves. However, it was Rory McIlroy and The Masters golf that stole the show. The Northern Irishman’s glorious, torturous final round at Augusta helped bring in a peak audience of 1.85 million, 37% of total TV viewership.
Commenting, Sky Sports Managing Director, Jonathan Licht, said:
Sunday was a day of unforgettable sporting drama, and a proud day for Sky Sports, as the live action had fans gripped from the morning into the early hours. From Rory’s historic win at Augusta to an exciting Bahrain Grand Prix and a packed schedule of football, cricket and tennis – it was a day that had it all. These record-breaking numbers are a testament to the incredible teams who work tirelessly behind-the-scenes to bring unmissable moments to life and showcase the very best in sport across the world.
Proof Sport is Essential
The numbers serve as yet another reminder that it truly is sport, and basically only sport, that is keeping linear TV going. Had Rory McIlroy and the Masters been on the BBC or another terresterial channel, the numbers would have been even higher.
Obviously, Sky Sports is a specialist broadcaster but the sports rights it has are central to the high-value bundles sold by Sky and via NOW. The films are good, the drama series enjoyable, but yesterday’s sporting spectacle is really what people splash out for. It’s why streamers are getting more involved too, as we saw this summer.