The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry delivered once again for ESPN.
Red Sox-Yankees delivered a 1.2 rating and 2.0 million viewers on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball last weekend, up 100% in ratings and 107% in viewership from Nationals-Mets last year (0.6, 947K) and up a tick and 10% respectively from Pirates-Cardinals in 2015 (1.1, 1.8M).
The Yankees’ win was the most-watched regular season game in the month of September, when football season largely overshadows baseball, since a 2013 regional window on FOX scored 2.1 million. The game delivered a 7.0 rating in New York City and a 6.0 in Boston.
Sunday Night Baseball is now averaging 1.4 million viewers this season, up 14% from last year.
In other action, Cubs-Pirates scored 687,000 in the back half of ESPN’s Labor Day doubleheader (+6%) while the early Brewers-Reds game had 569,000 (-29%). Going back further, the network’s August 30 Rangers-Astros game posted 431,000 (-35%).
Across all windows, ESPN is averaging 803,000 viewers for MLB coverage (+7%). The Yankees have played in five of the network’s seven most-watched telecasts, all on Sunday nights.
Over on Fox Sports 1, last night’s Royals-Tigers game had 466,000 viewers — down 21% from Cardinals-Pirates on ESPN last year (589K). On Saturday, Angels-Rangers had a 0.21 rating (-5%) and 373,000 (+2%) and Cardinals-Giants had a 0.22 and 362,000. Rounding out the recent slate, TBS delivered 290,000 for D’Backs-Rockies on Sunday (-52%).
