The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and Men’s College World Series posted viewer gains over the holiday weekend.
Saturday’s Major League Baseball coverage on FOX, which featured Yankees-Red Sox in most markets, averaged 2.40 million viewers — marking the third-largest audience of the MLB season. Coverage on FOX the previous week (mostly Dodgers-Yankees) holds the top spot with 2.91 million, followed by an opening weekend FOX window in March that drew 2.53 million.
Ratings and viewership soared over the same weekend last year, when FOX was slated to carry the same matchup but it was rained out. The network aired Rays-Padres nationally instead (0.6, 1.08M).
Another Yankees-Red Sox game averaged 2.07 million on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, the network’s second-largest audience of the season. Boston’s win, which peaked with 2.53 million in the 9:15 quarter-hour, trails only Dodgers-Yankees the prior week (2.30M). ESPN’s MLB coverage this season is averaging 1.58 million viewers, up 5% from last year.
The Sunday night game faced direct competition from North Carolina-Tennessee in the Men’s College World Series, which averaged 1.7 million on ESPN2 — the seventh-largest MCWS audience on record outside of the MCWS Final. The first six games of the MCWS averaged 1.2 million viewers, up 5% from last year and the highest average at this point of the event on record.
Four of the six games thus far have averaged at least 1.1 million viewers. Among them, FSU-Tennessee drew 1.4 million Friday night, NC State-Kentucky had 1.4 million Saturday afternoon and Sunday’s Virginia-FSU matinee drew 1.1 million, all on the ESPN flagship.
I think ESPN has actually done a good job covering the College World Series. They have a lot of cameras and the announcers are very knowledgeable.
I think Baseball numbers are pretty amazing, having in mind poor media-coverage for baseball and sometimes intentional minimization. We must also take into account the 162-game schedule. If the NFL or any other league had 162 games, the good numbers in baseball would be understood.
It looks like baseball is faring pretty good, this season. Raw TV numbers are just an indication, the continuous growth in attendance, at record level this past weekend, is another one. Participation, particularly youth participation, is on a rise, too.
Considering how much baseball relies on regional TV, it’s pretty impressive about 3.8 million people chose, on a Sunday night, sandwiched in between nights with clinching NBA and NHL games, even though in no direct competition, to watch baseball games, be it pro or college, on national cable TV.
I truly think baseball is in the early stages of a resurgence.
Jon, is there any news on how MLB teams are trending on local TV and how much the situation regarding RSNs is impacting ratings and viewership? Thank you very much!
Haven’t seen anything RSN related in a long time.
Hi Jon, is there anywhere I can find data for a year over year comparison of MLB viewership trends so far in 2024? And a game by game comparison of the men’s CWS (similar to the one you posted for the 2023 vs 2022 WCWS last year)?
I’ll see what I can do on both fronts.
Thanks very much!
Hi Jon, by any chance were you able to find these comparisons, or know where I can look?
Not yet, but I’ll reach out and ask.
Jon
It seems like ESPN has really minimized their coverage of the college World Series. Years ago, they used to give it the full espn big time feel. There were Prime time double headers (6pm and 9pm). Big name announcers (former big name players like Fred Lynn would show up). What happened? Now they have mid week games starting at 2pm et . ESPN usually does a great job with college sports. How come they minimized the college World Series?
I have to imagine that there was a desire even by the CWS to spread the games out — 6 and 9 is a recipe for long-delayed games. So having one in the afternoon and the other late in the evening is probably the best way to go.
Jon, do you have ratings for the Cardinals vs Cubs game on FS1?
The baseball resurgence is here