TV Ratings Masterful

More than 50 million people saw all or part of Tiger Woods’ historic Masters victory over the weekend, making it the most-watched golf tournament ever, CBS said.

Sunday’s final round received a 14.1 Nielsen national rating and 31 share, shattering all ratings records for Grand Slam golf tournaments. The highest previous rating for a major tournament was 12.0 for the final round of the 1966 Masters.

By way of comparison, Fox averaged an 11.3 rating for its regular-season NFL games in 1996.

Each ratings point represents 972,000 homes. The share is the percentage of televisions in actual use at the time.

That means the final round of the Masters was seen in 13.7 million homes in America and by an estimated 44 million people that day alone, also a viewing record, CBS said.