The Masters going to a streaming service for even part of its 2025 coverage might just be the seventh sign of the apocalypse.

Or maybe it’s just a sign of the times.

Whatever the case, the Masters is adding coverage on Paramount+ to its 2025 television plans, taking the event that has been a stalwart on CBS and network television behind the gates of that particular streaming service for the first time.

Okay, in the end, this is generally a good thing. For people of a certain age, it’s not that difficult to remember a time of only three networks, manually changing television channels and only getting to see the back nine of Augusta National on Saturday and Sunday. There was no coverage on Thursday and Friday, of course, because, well, that’s the way it was.

Through the years the Masters, despite its staid reputation, has been among the most innovative of tournaments. That includes how it broadcasts the event, going with four days of coverage, using ESPN as a broadcast partner and expanding coverage to all 18 holes each day. What the Masters does at Masters.com with its digital broadcasting of the event is the standard by which all sporting events should be judged.

More: Charter Spectrum rolls out new pricing and internet speeds

More coverage of one of the biggest events in golf on one of the game’s most treasured stages is not the issue. The added coverage begins with an extra hour on Saturday and Sunday on CBS, with the network now starting at 11 a.m. Pacific time and running through 4 p.m.

“The Masters Tournament has had the great fortune of enjoying an extraordinary relationship with CBS Sports for nearly 70 years,” Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley in a release announcing the additions. “Alongside our friends at the network, we are pleased to extend the tournament’s weekend coverage and ultimately deliver more live golf for Masters fans.”

The twist is that from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, the Masters will be shown exclusively on Paramount+. So of the 14 hours of weekend non-digital coverage, four of those hours will require a Paramount+ subscription. Paramount+ will also broadcast the rest of the CBS network coverage as well, meaning all 14 hours of the weekend will be on the streaming service, but 10 of those hours will also be on CBS.

This is nothing new in sports or in golf. NBC, which broadcasts the U.S. Open, put plenty of its coverage of that national championship on its Peacock streaming service, including hours of exclusive coverage. Peacock has also done some exclusive coverage of PGA Tour events, which are also broadcast on ESPN+. Of course, Peacock and ESPN+ require a monthly subscription fee, just as Paramount+ does.

Of note, ESPN+ and Paramount+ streaming subscriptions are now part of some television plans for Charter Spectrum subscribers.

Just two weeks ago the National Football League put a Friday game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers in Brazil exclusively on Peacock. In December, two NFL games on Christmas Day will be broadcast exclusively on Netflix. Adding coverage on a streaming service, or at least part of a sports coverage, is now the norm. Fans can’t react with surprise anymore when a sporting event goes behind the subscription wall.

That doesn’t mean those same fans shouldn’t have a certain amount of outrage. In order to keep track of their favorite sport, fans might have to add two or three or four streaming services to their monthly expenses, in addition to whatever streaming services they might pay for searching for movies or original television shows. Fans are seeing hundreds of dollars a year headed toward just trying to watch televised sports in addition to their cable bill or other pay television service.

So maybe another sporting event joining the streaming craze isn’t that newsworthy. But the Masters, with its long-time association with CBS and its already stellar digital broadcast, might have been the last of the events golf fans would expect to go to a streaming service.

What’s next, Super Bowl LXX on Disney+? The future is unknown, but it is definitely being streamed.

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Masters expanding coverage to Paramount+ shows streaming is the future