To speak about The Masters at Augusta is to speak about one of the most prestigious tournaments in golf and in sport, an event whose economic distinctiveness and business have grown over the years without losing that aura of exclusive prestige. Augusta National Golf Club, the owner and organiser of the event, has built a business that generates close to $150 million a year through merchandise, ticketing, international television rights, and food and beverage.

The logic behind The Masters looks very different from that of most major sports properties. While other events turn every metre of the venue, every commercial break and every audiovisual asset into new revenue streams, Augusta National has preferred to grow the value of the tournament through exclusivity, tradition and control of the product. In doing so, the club has built one of the most exclusive assets in sport: an event that generates between $150 million and $200 million a year, and that could be leaving as much as $250 million annually in untapped potential revenue on the table in order to preserve its prestige, its aesthetic and its ability to decide how the tournament is presented to the world.

Augusta National and a business built on exclusivity, control and prestige

That model cannot be separated from the fact that the tournament is always staged at the same venue. Unlike The Open Championship, the US Open or the PGA Championship, The Masters does not rotate between courses: it has been played continuously at Augusta National, in the state of Georgia, since its inaugural edition in 1934. That permanence turns the course into an economic asset almost as important as the tournament itself. The layout, its 18 holes and its iconography are all part of the product, which is why the club has continued to update its facilities without altering its core identity. According to SportsPro, Augusta National has invested around $200 million in buying nearby land and homes for its future plans. Confirmed projects include underground parking and improved player facilities.

Augusta protects its traditions, but it adjusts its structure when the market demands it. That is where the second major economic pillar of the tournament comes in: prize money, which has grown sharply in recent years to keep The Masters at the top tier of men’s golf, in a context where competitive pressure no longer comes only from the other majors, but also from the new economics created around LIV Golf.

Prize money: how The Masters purse has grown

In the 2025 edition, The Masters offered a total purse of $21 million, the highest in its history up to that point, and awarded $4.2 million to the champion, Rory McIlroy. The recent evolution of the winner’s prize shows quite clearly how quickly the tournament has accelerated in this area: $1.8 million in 2020, $2.07 million in 2021, $2.7 million in 2022, $3.24 million in 2023, $3.6 million in 2024 and $4.2 million in 2025. In other words, the winner’s payout rose by $2.4 million in five years.

The growth does not affect only the winner. In 2025, the top four finishers all earned more than $1 million: runner-up Justin Rose received $2,268,000, while Patrick Reed and Scottie Scheffler, in third and fourth, also cleared the seven-figure mark. Further down the leaderboard, the payouts remained significant: the players tied for fifth, Bryson DeChambeau and Sungjae Im, each came close to $800,000; Ludvig Aberg, in seventh, earned more than $700,000; and a four-way tie for eighth was worth $588,000. Even players who missed the cut received part of the purse, with $25,000 for each of them in 2025. With the 2026 purse still awaiting official confirmation, the pattern suggests there is room for further growth.

The increase in the purse also needs to be read in relation to the other major championships. In 2025, the US Open offered $21.5 million, The Masters stood at $21 million, the PGA Championship at $19 million and The Open at $17 million. That places Augusta near the very top of the majors market, although still behind the US Open. The Masters has had to operate in a far more aggressive market than it did a decade ago. The recent expansion of purses across the majors has been driven, at least in part, by the new level of earnings and bonuses introduced by LIV Golf.

The television business of The Masters: history, technical innovation and editorial control

The other major pillar of The Masters business is television, and here too the tournament behaves differently from the rest of the market. Its relationship with CBS began in 1956, when the tournament was televised for the first time with limited coverage. In 1965, a television studio was built in Butler Cabin; in 1966, it became the first golf tournament broadcast in colour; in 1967 came the first international broadcast with the BBC; in 1970, coverage was extended to the 13th hole; in 1973, the famous 12th hole, Golden Bell, was shown live; in 1982, the first and second rounds were added to television coverage and the tournament also became the first golf event carried on cable with USA Network; in 1996, its digital platform was launched, first as Masters.com and Masters.org; in 2000, it became the first golf tournament shown in high definition on a major network; in 2002, the final round was televised with all 18 holes for the first time; in 2006, Amen Corner Live arrived with 22 hours of live coverage across the four tournament days; in 2008, ESPN took over cable coverage of the first two rounds and the Par 3 Contest; in 2010, the tournament was produced in 3D for television and the internet, something unprecedented for a major sports event; in 2011, the official app made its debut; and in 2016, it became the first live sports event in the United States to be produced in 4K.

In 2025, CBS added one extra hour of coverage to the third round and Saturday’s broadcast window moved to 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET, matching Sunday’s slot. In addition, Paramount+ offered two hours of exclusive early coverage during the weekend rounds, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. ET, before CBS took over. In 2026, the next step will be the arrival of Amazon Prime Video as a new official broadcaster, albeit in a limited role, with four hours of coverage spread across Thursday and Friday and the additional launch of a data-based feed, Inside Amen Corner.

In the United States, the agreements with CBS and ESPN have followed a very different logic from that of other premium sports properties: little or no traditional rights fee compared with the rest of the market, an advertising load reduced to around four minutes per hour, and a huge degree of control for the club over the tone, production and scope of the coverage. All of that comes with major audiences: the final round of The Masters in 2025 averaged 12.71 million viewers and peaked at 19.54 million, the best figure since 2018. That combination of mass reach, technical innovation, measured coverage and editorial control helps explain why the business of The Masters is built around protecting the overall value of the product.