Major League Baseball opened its delayed, abbreviated season with a record Opening Night audience.
Thursday’s Yankees-Nationals MLB Opening Night game averaged a 2.45 rating and 4.01 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest season opening audience on record and the largest regular season MLB audience on any network in nine years (2011 Yankees-Red Sox: 4.72M).
New York’s rain-shortened win, which peaked with 4.48 million from 8:30-8:45 PM ET, soared 210% in ratings and 237% in viewership from Opening Night last year (Red Sox-Mariners: 0.8, 1.19M) and 98% and 103% respectively from 2018 (Giants-Dodgers: 1.2, 1.97M). Keep in mind that last year’s game aired opposite the NCAA Tournament.
The game delivered ESPN’s largest audience since the end of “The Last Dance” in May, and its largest audience for a live event since the NFL Draft in April. It was the network’s most-watched competitive sports event since a Blazers-Lakers NBA game on January 31, the first Laker game since the passing of Kobe Bryant (4.41M).
Compared to other returns from hiatus, Yankees-Nationals was no match for NASCAR’s restart at Darlington in May (3.7, 6.32M), but easily topped the final round of the PGA Tour’s return at Colonial in June (2.1, 3.09M).
Later in the night, the Giants-Dodgers nightcap averaged a 1.6 and 2.76 million — ESPN’s largest late night MLB audience on record. There was no comparable window last year, but ratings jumped 132% and viewership 165% over 2018 (Indians-Mariners: 0.7, 1.04M).
Locally, Yankees-Nationals averaged an 8.4 rating in Washington D.C. and a 7.8 in New York City and Giants-Dodgers a 6.9 in the Bay Area and a 6.8 in Los Angeles. Both D.C. and the Bay Area generated their best-ever MLB regular season rating on ESPN.
ESPN dominated the night on television in the key young adult demographics, with Yankees-Nationals ranking first in adults 18-49 (1.2) and 18-34 (1.1) and Giants-Dodgers second (0.9 and 0.75 respectively). No non-baseball program managed better than a 0.5 in 18-49 or a 0.4 in 18-34.
MLB Opening Night ratings, viewership, past decade
[Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 7.24, ESPN PR 7.24]
