If not the best-received 30 For 30, Sunday’s documentary about the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase was nonetheless a solid draw in the ratings.
The premiere of the ESPN 30 For 30 documentary “Long Gone Summer” — about the 1998 home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa — averaged 1.06 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2 Sunday night, down 10% from “Be Water” the previous week (1.17M), but comfortably ahead of parts one and two of “Lance” on the previous two Sundays (857K and 756K respectively).
“Long Gone Summer” ranks as the third-most watched 30 For 30 premiere in the past 18 months, behind only “Be Water” and “Rodman: For Better or Worse” back in September (1.07M). Keep in mind that “The Last Dance” — ESPN’s much-watched ten-part series about the 1990s Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls — was not part of the 30 For 30 series. It averaged 5.6 million viewers over five weeks.
Sunday’s premiere also delivered the second-largest ESPN audience of any kind since the end of “The Last Dance” last month, with the caveat that ESPN has precious few live sporting events on its schedule. It topped the previous night’s live UFC main event on ESPN, which averaged 908,000.
Dating back to the start of “The Last Dance” on April 19, ESPN filled nine straight Sunday nights with documentary premieres. All but “Lance” averaged at least one million viewers.
ESPN documentary viewership dating back to “The Last Dance”
[Nielsen estimates from ESPN]
