MLB regular season viewership is mostly up on national television, led by newcomer NBC.
NBC is averaging 2.435 million viewers for its Major League Baseball coverage this season — a figure that combines a linear Nielsen audience with streaming viewership measured by Adobe Analytics — the highest of any of the league’s broadcast partners.
The NBCU average is up 46% from last year’s equivalent ESPN slate and the highest for the “Sunday Night Baseball” package at this point of the season since 2008. (Note that Nielsen methodological changes skew comparisons to past years, particularly those prior to 2020, when the company began including out-of-home viewing in its estimates.)
Keep in mind that of the total NBCUniversal inventory, only the 11 games on NBC have been Nielsen-rated. All of the games on Peacock — 26 total across its “MLB Sunday Leadoff,” “Sunday Night Baseball” and “Star-Spangled Sunday” windows — are excluded from the average, as has also been the case for the streamer’s NBA and college sports telecasts. All of the “Sunday Night Baseball” games in past years were Nielsen rated.
NBCU owns three of the four largest audiences so far this season, topped by an abbreviated Yankees-Red Sox “Sunday Night Baseball” telecast in June that drew 4.0 million following the PGA Tour Travelers Championship. Its final window of the first half, Padres-Dodgers on July 5, averaged 2.3 million.
The FOX broadcast network ranks second among MLB broadcasters with an average of 2.266 million, up 10% from last year and its highest average since it resumed carrying early season games in 2023. (Its schedule began in May or later from 2016-22.)
The network’s last window of the first half was also its most-watched, as it drew 3.335 million for a Fourth of July window that aired shortly after a FIFA World Cup match — the second-largest audience of the season on any network.
ESPN/ABC, which is airing a schedule of mostly weeknight games this season, is averaging 1.12 million through its first 13 windows. As might go without saying, that is down from last year’s comparable average for “Sunday Night Baseball” (1.71M). The company’s most-watched game was Yankees-Red Sox on ABC June 27 at 1.99 million.
ESPN finished its first half schedule with 1.11 million for Phillies-Reds and 687,000 for Diamondbacks-Padres last Wednesday night.
Netflix, which carries the Home Run Derby Monday night, averaged 3.0 million for its lone first half window — the Yankees-Giants Opening Night game — ranking as the fifth-largest audience of the first half.
As for the non-exclusive broadcasters, TNT Sports is averaging 466,000 for its Tuesday night games on TBS, TNT and HBO Max, up 21% from last year and the highest since the company’s schedule shifted from Sundays to Tuesdays in 2022. (Note that HBO Max is only partially included in TNT Sports viewership figures.) The most-watched of those games was a Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series rematch early in the season, which drew 796,000. More recently, Tigers-Yankees drew 676,000 on June 30.
MLB Network is averaging 313,000 for its “Showcase” coverage, up 36% from last year and the highest since 2018, topping out at 532,000 for White Sox-Yankees on June 17. Averages for FS1 were not immediately available.
