On the eve of the season’s opening Major, The Masters, Michael Harvey, Head of Strategy at sports marketing agency WePlay, explains how, in the age of the fragmented structure of the men’s professional game, and equally fractured viewing audiences, top golf events can and are addressing fan engagement by providing more tech-driven, data-rich content across multiple platforms
“In today’s hyper-competitive sports landscape, attention is the most valuable currency and nowhere is that more evident than in golf, where the rise of LIV Golf and the launch of the TGL have splintered audiences and fractured loyalties.
For the PGA TOUR, the days of reliably drawing top talent to every event are gone, and the numbers are showing it. On the eve of The Masters at Augusta, one of golf’s biggest and most traditional events faces a challenge for attention as audiences fragment.
Last year’s Masters audience was down 20%, the lowest in 30 years, with PGA Tour event viewership also down around 20%, whilst YouTube Golf and Netflix are also potentially diluting attention away from golf’s main programming.
On the surface, the headlines for The Masters might appear bleak, but dig deeper and a different story emerges; one of innovation and evolving viewer behaviour. While traditional TV ratings have dipped, engagement through The Masters app is telling a more optimistic tale.
Google searches for The Masters app surged 20.4% year-over-year, reaching their highest level in five years. The Masters has embraced this shift and responded with significant investment in its digital platforms.
In partnership with IBM, the 2025 version of The Masters app returns with a host of new, data-rich features designed to enhance viewer experience:
• Daily Data-Driven Recaps: Insights into how each hole played, including statistics like, “No.14 has played difficult today, with 25% of scores resulting in bogeys.”
• Performance-Based Projections: Real-time expectations such as, “No. 9 is projected to be the third most difficult hole today.”
• Historical Context: Leveraging nine years of tournament data and over 180,000 shots to deliver insights like, “Shots from this location result in a birdie 82% of the time.”
And the innovation doesn’t stop there. The newly revamped Vision Pro app is offering fans a fully immersive 3D experience of Augusta National from the comfort of their own homes, ushering in a new era of virtual attendance.
No longer simply a second screen, the award-winning Masters app has become the first choice for many fans, offering an experience tailored to the preferences of modern audiences, whether following specific players, groups, or holes, so viewers can craft their own broadcasts, aligning perfectly with today’s algorithm-driven consumption habits and the growing popularity of sports betting.
Fan attention is the ultimate currency in sports, fuelling value for broadcasters, sponsors, and marketers. The Masters has realised that audiences want not just the ability to curate their own experience, but the data and analysis to go with it, leading to a fan attention migration rather than deficit during The Masters weekend.
The apps enhanced the experience for those who want to watch every shot, follow their favourite players or dip in and out to see if their bets are going to come in or not. The fan experience delivered through the app is in part due to effort and thought put into the engineering and features but also through The Master’s unique approach to broadcast rights and what they’re able to offer and retain.
I have no doubt that The Masters overall audience figures, taking app usage into account, will continue to set the benchmark for other traditional golf events and serves to underline the importance of innovation and curation to provide audiences with the content that they want.
Golf is more and more popular on the course and has an increasingly growing follower base on social media with PGA Tour and The Masters seeing growth on Instagram of 3.65% and 4.15%, and 9.72% & 21.6% across YouTube over the past nine months respectively, according to data from WePlay’s Power Rankings.
Along with The Masters supplementing its TV broadcast with their award-winning app, golf is increasingly finding new ways to reach its audience. Utiltising the growing trend towards YouTube and social media golf stars that we have seen Bryson DeChambeau use to change the perception surrounding him in recent years.
As the rest of golf grapples with fractured formats and shifting allegiances, The Masters has quietly engineered its own kind of revolution, not through louder headlines, but by meeting fans where they are, and where they’re going.”
About WePlay
Founded in 2012, WePlay is a sports marketing agency specialising in fan engagement, direct-to-consumer marketing, and monetisation. Combining creative innovation with performance-driven strategies, WePlay partners with top sports organisations worldwide – including UFC, UEFA, FIFA, Paris Saint-Germain, La Liga, AC Milan, and SailGP – to drive digital growth and commercial success. For more information, visit www.weplay.co