It may not make for the best World Series matchup if 2000 is a guide, but the Yankees-Mets Subway Series is nonetheless a strong ratings draw.
ESPN averaged a 1.2 rating and 2.12 million viewers for exclusive coverage of Wednesday’s Yankees-Mets Major League Baseball game, marking the largest weeknight MLB audience on any network since last year’s “Field of Dreams” game on FOX, and the league’s top weeknight audience on ESPN since the months-delayed Opening Night two years ago (Yankees-Nationals: 4.1M).
Excluding Opening Night and tiebreaker games, it ranks as the most-watched weeknight regular season game on ESPN since September 2007.
The Mets’ win, which peaked with 2.81 million viewers from 10:15-10:30 PM ET, ranks fifth in viewership behind four weekend Yankees-Red Sox games. The previous weeknight season-high was 1.37 million for Reds-Braves on ESPN2 Opening Night. Only one other weeknight game this season has crossed the million viewer threshold, Cardinals-Braves on ESPN July 6 (1.10M). For the night, it ranked second in the key adult demographics behind only the CBS reality show “Big Brother.”
The same Yankees-Mets matchup averaged a 0.54 and 912,000 on TBS Tuesday night, the network’s most-watched regular season game since 2009. Unlike ESPN’s Wednesday night game, the Tuesday night contest co-existed with RSN coverage in New York. Including the local RSN audience — 484,000 on YES Network and 457,000 on SNY, per Sports Business Journal — the game averaged a combined 1.85 million.
Tuesday’s game obliterated the previous TBS season-high, 399,000 for Dodgers-Cardinals two weeks earlier.
In other action, Padres-Mets drew a 0.8 and 1.37 million on the latest edition of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball — up considerably from White Sox-Brewers opposite the Olympics last year (0.52, 828K) — and FOX drew a 0.95 and 1.75 million for regional action the previous night. There was no comparable FOX window last year. FS1 chipped in a 0.25 and 443,000 for Astros-Mariners Saturday afternoon.
