Major League Baseball’s second-annual Little League Classic could not quite measure up to the first.
The Mets-Phillies MLB Little League Classic earned a 1.0 rating and 1.6 million viewers on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball over the weekend, down a tick in ratings and 8% in viewership from last year (Cardinals-Pirates: 1.1, 1.78M) but up 11% and 20% respectively from 2016 (Mets-Giants: 0.9, 1.36M).
It was the 15th of 19 Sunday night games this season to decline in ratings and/or viewership.
In a year where the Mets have plumbed the depths, Sunday’s game was the team’s second-most watched appearance on ESPN (seven telecasts). The team’s previous Sunday Night Baseball appearance, a Subway Series game in June, had 2.1 million.
Sunday’s game was not alone in what was a down weekend for Major League Baseball. Earlier in the day, Blue Jays-Yankees scored 288,000 viewers on TBS, not surprisingly down 53% from Yankees-Red Sox last year (609K) but also down 28% from 2016 (Red Sox-Tigers: 399K).
On Saturday, FS1 drew just 181,000 for Orioles-Indians — down 48% from last year (Dodgers-Tigers: 348K) and down 43% from 2016 (Mets-Giants: 318K). It topped only Diamondbacks-Nationals on FS1 in April (179K) as the least-watched MLB game on national television this season (excluding MLB Network).
The exception was Brewers-Cardinals on FS1 Saturday night, which had a 0.32 and 531,000. There was no comparable window last year.
[Numbers from ShowBuzz Daily 8.21]
