The Potential Revenue of the Masters

The 87th edition of the Masters concluded two weeks ago. The Masters is one of four major golf tournaments each year and is known as one of the most prestigious tournaments in golf. The tournament started in 1934 and saw its 23rd international winner this year, with John Rahm from Spain receiving his first green jacket. Rahm is the first Spanish player to win the Masters since Sergio Garcia won in 2017. This Masters win is John Rahm’s second major and first major win since his 2021 win in the US Open. The total winnings purse from the masters was 18 million dollars this year, and with first place, John Rahm took home 3.24 million dollars with his masters win.

The prestigious Master’s golf tournament brings in millions of golf fans to watch the tournament each year. This year the final round of the Masters, at its peak of broadcast viewership, got up to 15 million viewers and over 16 million viewers in total for the final round. The tournament’s overall viewership increased by 19% from last year. This was the most-watched golf event on any US network in the previous five years. With all these viewers, you’d expect the Masters to want to capitalize on their economic potential, but you’d be wrong. It is predicted that Augusta National golf course will miss out on 269 million dollars in potential profit from the famous golf tournament. The Masters make zero profit off of their Domestic television rights; the Masters instead let major television companies such as CBS and ESPN show their tournament for free, in return the Masters control all the cameras and what is displayed during the tournament to keep the mystique and uniqueness of their tournament in their hands. The domestic TV rights for the tournament are estimated to be worth over 100 million dollars. The tournament has only six total sponsors, including companies such as Rolex, IBM, AT&T, Delta, UPS, and Mercedes Benz. All these sponsors share four minutes of commercials during an hour of broadcasting of the event. One area of profit from the tournament where the Masters capitalize to the maximum is merchandise. It is estimated that the Masters brings in 70 million dollars from their merchandise alone. That is ten million dollars daily for all seven days of the famous tournament. Another area of the total capitalization of profit is the International broadcasting rights, where it is predicted that they capitalize over 20 million dollars each year with their tv rights outside of the United States.

With the Masters being over, we look at the upcoming major golf events, with the PGA Championship during May 15-21, the U.S Open on June 12-18th, and finally, the last major competition for Golf this year, the Open Championship, which is during  July 17th-23rd. The Open Championship, referred to as the British Open, is the only international Golf major championship. The Open Championship is played at St. Andrews golf club in Scotland and has been a major tournament since 1860. Last year’s winner, Cameron Smith, took home 2.5 million dollars from his championship win, and the total purse prize money for the tournament was 14 million dollars.

With the Masters being over, it should be engaging in the next ten years if they have any more leniency towards sponsorships and television deals to try and capitalize the most on their profit revenue.