The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry boosted ESPN to a multi-year high.
Red Sox-Yankees earned a 1.7 rating and 2.6 million viewers on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball over the weekend, up 70% in ratings and 60% in viewership from Cardinals-Cubs opposite the Olympics last year (1.0, 1.6M) and up 42% and 35% respectively from Angels-Royals in 2015 (1.2, 1.9M).
The Red Sox’ extra-inning win was ESPN’s top game outside of Opening Night in three years, since another Red Sox-Yankees game in June 2014 (1.8, 2.6M). For the season, it earned the second-largest audience on any network behind Cubs-Cardinals on ESPN Opening Night (2.1, 3.6M).
Sunday’s game comfortably outdrew the competing Seahawks-Chargers NFL preseason matchup on NFL Network (1.0, 1.8M), including in the key demographics of adults 18-49 (0.7 to 0.5) and adults 18-34 (0.5 to 0.4).
The previous day, the teams delivered a 0.29 (+71%) and 423,000 (+73%) on Fox Sports 1. There was no comparable window in ’15.
On Monday, Mets-Yankees had 982,000 on ESPN — up 78% from Royals-Tigers last year (553K) and up 1% from Giants-Cardinals in ’15 (968K). It was the third-most watched weeknight game on any network this season, behind Indians-Rangers on Opening Day (1.1M) and the Cubs’ home opener against the Dodgers (1.8M).
In non-Yankee action, TBS scored 295,000 viewers for Indians-Rays on Sunday (-17%).
