One of soccer’s biggest matchups delivered strong numbers for ESPN. In other news, fewer viewers watched Giants-Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball, and weekend MLB action was mixed on TBS and FS1.
El Clasico Big on ESPN
- Saturday’s Real Madrid-Barcelona International Champions Cup match earned a 0.5 rating and 836,000 viewers on ESPN, the network’s largest audience ever for a non-U.S. international friendly. The previous high was 724,000 for Mexico-Argentina two years ago. The match also had a Spanish-language audience of 692,000 on ESPN Deportes and ESPN2 and a streaming audience of 73,000 on WatchESPN, bringing the overall total to 1.7 million.
Slight Dip For Giants-Dodgers on SNB
- Giants-Dodgers had a 1.1 rating and 1.7 million viewers on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball last weekend, down a tick in ratings and 3% in viewership from Mariners-Cubs last year (1.2, 1.7M) and down 15% and 16% respectively from Mets-Nationals in 2015 (1.3, 2.0M). The following night, Indians-Red Sox had a 0.5 and 735,000 (-21%). On a more positive note, last Wednesday’s Cubs-White Sox game had a 0.5 and 734,000 — flat in ratings and up 12% in viewership from the same matchup last year (0.5, 653K) and up a tick and 27% respectively from Angels-Astros in ’15 (0.4, 577K).
Weekend MLB Up on TBS, Down on FS1
- TBS earned a 0.39 rating and 562,000 viewers for Cubs-Brewers Sunday afternoon, up 56% in ratings and 57% in viewership from Cardinals-Marlins last year (0.25, 357K) and the network’s most-watched game of the season (four telecasts). The previous day, Fox Sports 1 pulled 421,000 for Giants-Dodgers (-28%) and just 276,000 for Reds-Marilns (-29%).
