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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Bill Speros

Masters: 2.5 million watch ESPN Round 1 coverage

Round 1 of the Masters drew nearly 2.5 million viewers during ESPN’s live telecast Thursday, despite transmission failures.

Coverage began at 3 p.m. ET and ESPN averaged 2,482,117 viewers for the 4.5-hour telecast as Tiger Woods and several other notables filled the leaderboard throughout the afternoon.

The viewership was lower than last year’s average of 2,971,287, which was the first time Woods had competed in the tournament since 2015, but was higher than both 2017 (2,129,214) and 2016 (2,397,624).

MASTERS: Leaderboard | TV schedule | Saturday tee times

Among the top metered markets were: Greenville, S.C., (4.6 rating), Minneapolis-St. Paul (4.4), Buffalo (3.8), Fort Myers-Naples (3.6) and Columbus, Ohio (3.4).

ESPN has televised the first and second rounds of the Masters Tournament since 2008. CBS takes over for the weekend rounds.

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