Record-low numbers are nothing new for the MLB All-Star Game, but this year’s edition fell off the proverbial cliff.
The 2016 MLB All-Star Game earned a 5.4 final rating and 8.7 million viewers on FOX Tuesday night, down 18% in ratings and 20% in viewership from last year (6.6, 10.9M), down 23% in both measures from 2014 (7.0, 11.3M), and easily the lowest rated and least-watched edition of the game.
While the All-Star Game has experienced a prolonged ratings decline, this year marked the first time that it has fallen below a 6.0 rating or ten million viewers. Last year’s 6.6 and 10.9 million were the previous lows.
Among adults 18-49, Tuesday’s game scored a 2.2 rating — down 29% from last year (3.1), down 31% from 2014 (3.2) and the lowest demo rating for the game since at least 1991. It scored a mere 1.8 in adults 18-34, down 31% from last year (2.6) and down 28% from 2014 (2.5).
As recently as 2009, the All-Star Game scored an 8.9 rating, 14.6 million viewers, and a 4.7 among adults 18-49. The seven subsequent editions have been the lowest rated and least-watched since the event has been Nielsen rated. It is worth noting that since MLB began awarding home field advantage in the World Series to the winner of the All-Star Game, a move intended to boost interest among both players and fans, no edition has managed to surpass the 9.5 and 14.7 million for the 2002 game — which infamously ended in a tie.
Despite the steep record-low, baseball’s Midsummer Classic is still the highest rated and most-watched All-Star event in sports. The NFL Pro Bowl had a 4.5 rating and 8.0 million viewers on ESPN in January, and the NBA All-Star Game drew a 4.3 and 7.6 million on TNT and TBS in February. No NBA All-Star Game has had as high a rating as Tuesday’s 5.4 since 2003, and just one edition has had a larger audience over that span.
Keep in mind that is not the case in the younger demos. In adults 18-49, the NBA All-Star Game (3.3) and Pro Bowl (2.8) comfortably topped baseball’s 2.2. That was also the case in adults 18-34, where the NBA (3.4) nearly doubled baseball’s 1.8 and the Pro Bowl also came out well ahead (2.4).
Once the top rated sporting event of the summer, topping every game of the NBA Finals nine years ago, the All-Star Game this year fell short of the Copa America final — which had 9.8 million viewers combined on Univision and Fox Sports 1. It barely edged the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials on Sunday night, which had a 5.0 and 8.6 million on NBC.
(Tue. numbers from Associated Press via USA Today, ShowBuzz Daily)
