The MLB Home Run Derby scored a rebound over last year’s news-affected audience.
Monday’s Major League Baseball Home Run Derby averaged a 2.7 rating and 5.73 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2, down a tick in ratings but up 5% in viewership from last year (2.8, 5.45M) — when coverage aired opposite night one of the Republican National Convention in the aftermath of the most serious assassination attempt on a presidential candidate since 1968.
Outside of that anomalous circumstance, viewership was actually the lowest for the Derby since 2018 (5.57M) — and the household rating was the lowest since at least 1997. While MLB viewership has been on the rise this season, All-Star events have across sports been on a downward trajectory for years.
The Derby nonetheless remains one of the most-watched events in the All-Star genre, surpassing all other such events outside of the MLB All-Star Game itself. This year’s NBA All-Star Game and NFL Pro Bowl Games both averaged 4.7 million, and their Derby equivalents — NBA All-Star Saturday Night and the Pro Bowl Skills Competition — were further back with 3.39 and 1.13 million respectively.
Outside of the NBA and NFL, the only other All-Star event in sports to average even half of Monday’s audience was last year’s WNBA All-Star Game on ABC (3.44M).
In addition, the Derby ranks fourth among all MLB games on cable in the past year — trailing only three LCS games last October: Games 3 and 6 of the Dodgers-Mets NLCS on FS1 (5.88 and 6.27 million) and Game 5 of the Yankees-Guardians ALCS on TBS (5.73M).
Monday marked the last Home Run Derby on ESPN as part of the network’s expiring media rights deal, and it is unclear where the event will air next season. Even with a relatively low viewership figure this year, the Derby dominated a slow summer night on television on which the FOX broadcast network failed to hit the seven-figure mark for “Lego Masters,” per Programming Insider.
