ESPN opened what may be its final Major League Baseball season with a multi-year high.
Thursday’s Brewers-Yankees Major League Baseball Opening Day matinee averaged 1.93 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest Opening Day audience since Yankees-Nationals opened the COVID-delayed 2020 season (4.1M) and the most-watched outside of that anomalous circumstance since Giants-Dodgers in 2018 (1.97M).
The Yankees’ win, which peaked with 2.23 million viewers, outdrew all but five Sunday Night Baseball games last season — Red Sox-Yankees (twice), Dodgers-Yankees, Yankees-Tigers (Little League Classic) and Padres-Dodgers.
It should be noted that the midday start time — the first Opening Day matinee on the ESPN networks in four years — allowed the game to avoid direct competition with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Though it was highly unlikely to have made a difference in the television viewership, the game also marked Monday Night Football voice Joe Buck’s return to national MLB play-by-play for the first time since he left FOX after the 2021 season.
Later in the night, Tigers-Dodgers averaged 1.74 million opposite the NCAA games — up 10% from Cubs-Rangers last year (1.58M).
Opening Day marked the beginning of what is expected to be ESPN’s final Major League Baseball season. The network opted out of its contract in February, reportedly seeking a drastic reduction of its rights fee from $550 million to just $200 million per year. While ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro has said he is still interested in a renewal, the opt-out prompted MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to pronounce the relationship over in an inflammatory memo to owners.
Manfred has said MLB is pursuing replacement deals with broadcast and/or streaming partners, and per recent reporting, MLB could split the ESPN package into multiple separate deals. It is unclear where Opening Day would land in that scenario.
