After meeting in the most-watched World Series since 2017, the Yankees and Dodgers again moving the needle for Major League Baseball.
ESPN is averaging 1.74 million viewers for Major League Baseball games this season, up 22% from last year and the network’s highest average at this point of a season since 2017. That includes an MLB season-high 2.73 million for a Yankees-Dodgers World Series rematch on Sunday Night Baseball this past weekend, the largest Sunday night audience since Yankees-Red Sox in August 2018 (2.75M).
Going back further, it ranks as the fourth-most watched edition of Sunday Night Baseball in the past decade — behind the 2018 game and the season-opening editions in 2017 (Cubs-Cardinals: 3.62M) and 2016 (Mets-Royals: 2.90M). (Keep in mind Nielsen did not include out-of-home viewing in its estimates prior to 2020.)
ESPN owns the two largest audiences of the MLB season, with the Mets-Yankees Subway Series delivering 2.54 million on Sunday Night Baseball two weeks earlier.
On FOX, MLB coverage this season has averaged 1.84 million — up 10%. The network averaged 2.2 million for regional action featuring Yankees-Dodgers this past weekend, the fourth-largest audience of the season and second-largest on the network. FOX set its season-high the previous week, with 2.3 million for regional coverage featuring Dodgers-Mets.
The five most-watched MLB windows this season have featured the Yankees, Dodgers or Mets.
TBS is also up 16% for the season, with its viewership among adults under 35 up nearly 70 percent. An exact viewership figure was not immediately available, but the network was averaging 313,000 entering last week.
