A shift into primetime gave FOX its best Major League Baseball rating of the season.
Regional MLB action featuring Yankees/Mets drew a 2.7 final rating and 4.3 million viewers on FOX Saturday night, up 42% in ratings and 49% in viewership from afternoon coverage featuring Phillies/Yankees last year (1.9, 2.9 mil), and up 59% and 80%, respectively, from coverage featuring Mets/Rockies in ’07 (1.7, 2.3 mil).
Saturday’s telecast matches last year’s season high, and is tied as the highest rated regular season MLB on FOX telecast since coverage featuring Yankees/Red Sox in July ’08 (2.8).
Additionally, this marks the most-viewed regular season telecast on FOX since another Yankees/Red Sox game in July ’08 (4.5 mil).
The last time FOX aired a regular season MLB telecast in primetime (Yankees/Red Sox on a Friday night in April ’04), the game drew a 3.6 rating and 5.3 million viewers.
Though Saturday’s numbers were certainly better than average, it is not exactly promising that a primetime telecast featuring high profile teams such as the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, Phillies and Mets could not draw at least a 3.0 rating.
No regular season MLB telecast on FOX has hit the 3.0 threshold since July ’08. By comparison, several regular season NBA games on ABC and non-major PGA Tour telecasts have drawn at least a 3.0 during the same period.
In 2007 alone, FOX drew at least a 3.0 rating for regular season baseball coverage on three separate occasions.
Saturday’s telecast finished behind Magic/Celtics Game 3 on ESPN (6.0 mil), but ahead of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race on Speed Channel (3.8 mil).
