The ratings momentum that started during last year’s MLB Postseason has lasted through the subsequent regular season and into a second-straight October.
Tuesday’s Red Sox-Yankees MLB American League Wild Card Series Game 1 averaged 6.5 million viewers on ESPN (more specifically, a 3.3 rating and 6.52 million viewers, per Programming Insider), marking the largest audience for a Wild Card game under the best-of-three format that began in 2022.
Boston’s win, which peaked with 9.9 million viewers, cruised past the previous high of 4.02 million for last year’s Mets-Brewers Game 3. Keep in mind that between Nielsen’s February expansion of out-of-home viewing and September rollout of “Big Data + Panel,” this year’s viewership figures will generally have a built in advantage over all other years. But that would not be enough to fully account for an audience so much higher than the previous record.
The last time the Red Sox and Yankees met in postseason was in the final year of the single-elimination Wild Card format, 2021. The matchup averaged 7.6 million viewers, a panel-only figure that includes less out-of-home viewing. The last time the teams met in a series was in the 2018 ALDS, which averaged audiences of 5.57, 5.06, 4.41 and 7.15 million in a four-game set on TBS. The 2018 series occurred before Nielsen began including out-of-home viewing in its estimates.
The full opening day of the Wild Card Series averaged 4.4 million viewers, but ESPN had immediately not disclosed viewership figures for the three other games. This year’s average increased 73% from last year, an increase that would likely still be sizable even without Nielsen’s methodological changes.
The strong start to the MLB Postseason followed a regular season of across-the-board gains. FOX led the way with an average of 2.04 million viewers, up 9% from last year and its highest average since 2022. FS1 was also up 9% to 322,000, its highest average since 2019.
In its final season, ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball averaged 1.83 million, up 21% and its highest average since 2013. TNT Sports (TBS and truTV) averaged 462,000 for its Tuesday night game windows, up 29% and the network’s highest average since 2011.
On MLB Network, the national “Showcase” games averaged 256,000 (+12%) and the full game schedule averaged 232,000 (+22%), led by an audience of 758,000 for Rays-Yankees in July — the network’s second-most watched game.
While Nielsen’s methodological changes have no doubt contributed to some of the superlatives, keep in mind all of these packages were up at midseason — before the rollout of “Big Data + Panel.”