When broadcast coverage of the Masters begins this week, it will mark a special occasion for the tournament: its 70th anniversary on television.
The Masters and CBS have the longest-running relationship in sports between a specific event and network, reportedly agreeing each year on a new deal for coverage of the tournament. Financial terms of those deals are never disclosed.
The Masters, despite being the youngest of the golf majors, is the one most steeped in tradition. And CBS threads a needle each year of honoring that tradition while also introducing new coverage concepts.
“It’s a very delicate balance because honoring tradition of what this tournament represents is very important to them, very important to us,” CBS Sports President and CEO David Berson said. “We’re constantly looking to add things to the Masters that are firsts, that are capitalizing on new technology that’s available, but truly trying to strike that balance that we’re keeping it true to what it’s about.”
Though its first broadcast didn’t come until 1956, Augusta National Chairman Clifford Roberts had it in his mind to televise the tournament as early as 1947. According to David Owen’s book “The Making of the Masters,” CBS had a radio contract with Augusta National in the early 1940s but chose not to renew. The club then signed a deal with NBC, which also gave it the rights to televise the tournament. As soon as two months before that 1947 tournament, Roberts believed it would be televised, but NBC declined the option.
Fast forward to early 1956 and NBC was already carrying a money-losing operation with golf’s U.S. Open. Roberts wanted the Masters on TV, but a second golf tournament was too much for NBC, so the network declined its option. CBS signed with the club shortly thereafter, and the first Masters was broadcast less than a month later. The network carried the final four holes, and an estimated 10 million viewers tuned in.
CBS initially agreed to pay the club $10,000 for rights to the tournament and planned only to focus on the 18th hole. But Roberts wanted more coverage and agreed to cut CBS’s fee in half if the network would use the extra money to invest in more coverage, which it did to cover the final four holes. According to Owen’s book, CBS executive Merritt Coleman wired Roberts saying the tournament was “one of the most exciting sports programs I have ever witnessed.”
This year is a major milestone for the tournament and network, but looking deeper, years ending with 6 have a beautiful symmetry with Augusta National and the Masters’ media history.
In 1966, a decade after that first televised tournament, the Masters was the first televised golf tournament in color.
“It was like walking into the light after a lifetime of darkness,” legendary CBS producer Frank Chirkinian once told Sports Illustrated. “It is still burned into my brain.”
That was also the year CBS expanded coverage beyond the 15th hole, and it was in 1966 that CBS’s Jack Whitaker referred to a crowd of patrons as a “mob,” leading to a reported suspension by the club.
Twenty years after that, in 1986, Jim Nantz, the current host for CBS Sports, made his debut at the tournament.
“It’s the one event which people relate with me the most,” Nantz once told Links Magazine of his years covering the Masters. “I might be talking to a football coach in August, and he’ll ask me, ‘What about Augusta?’ Fans at games ask me, ‘Who’s going to win the Masters this year?’ It’s the one event I think about all year long. The Masters is in my heart.”
In 1996, Chirkinian produced his final Masters after 38 consecutive years. But there are more through lines: That same year, the tournament debuted its digital platform, Masters.org. In 2006, the tournament rolled out its “Amen Corner Live” coverage for the first time, and in 2016 the Masters was the first live sporting event in the U.S. to be carried in 4K Ultra HD.
Now this week, Amazon Prime Video is debuting as a new rights partner (four hours of coverage over Thursday and Friday), while it’s also rolling out a data-based “Inside Amen Corner” video feed.
“It’s not about us,” Berson said. “It’s about this incredible venue, the incredible history of this tournament, the incredible players in it, but add some bells and whistles that just help tell better stories, help showcase the strategy more, but keep true to what it is.”
While not entirely peeling back the curtain on what coverage this week will entail, Sellers Shy, CBS’s coordinating producer for golf, hinted that there could be enhanced drones and shot tracing used around Amen Corner. Those were both staples of CBS’s West Coast coverage on the PGA Tour early in the 2026 season.
This week’s broadcast also will hark back to 1986 — Nantz’s first year — which marks the 40th anniversary of Jack Nicklaus’ sixth Green Jacket, what many consider the best Masters of all time.
“We want to make sure that the viewers at home get to see the latest and greatest technology that [we have] to offer,” Shy said. “Augusta, frankly, the course deserves it. We want to make sure that the course and the tournament is the highlight.”
Masters Media Milestones
1956 — CBS broadcasts the Masters for the first time, providing coverage of the final four holes.
1966 — The Masters becomes the first golf tournament to be broadcast in color.
1986 — Jim Nantz makes his debut on CBS covering the tournament.
2006 — The tournament offers its “Amen Corner Live” coverage for the first time.
2016 — The Masters becomes the first live sporting event in the U.S. to be carried in 4K Ultra HD.
