The Yankees’ Aaron Judge continues to hit the TV ratings out of the park as he remains stuck on 60 home runs.
Red Sox-Yankees averaged a 1.2 rating and 2.20 million viewers on the latest edition of ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, the largest audience for a Sunday night game in the month of September since a matchup of the same teams in 2010 (2.63M). The Yankees’ win, which was called after six innings due to rain, delivered the season’s second-largest Sunday night audience and eighth-largest audience regardless of night or network.
The Yankees have played in eight of the top ten games, seven of those games coming against the Red Sox.
Figures include an audience of 243,000 for the Alex Rodriguez and Michael Kay “KayRod” alternate presentation on ESPN2, the third-largest audience of the eight total “KayRod” windows this season.
Ratings jumped 31% and viewership 47% from the same matchup on the same weekend last year and cruised past the two previous Sunday night games since the start of the NFL season — Dodgers-Giants the previous week (0.46, 787K) and Giants-Cubs two weeks prior (0.35, 634K).
The Judge chase — and its impact on the ratings — has continued into the workweek. On Tuesday night, Yankees-Blue Jays averaged 787,000 viewers on TBS and an additional 708,000 viewers on YES Network in New York, adding up to a combined audience of 1.5 million.
The YES Network audience was the largest since Derek Jeter’s final home game in 2014 (1.2M). YES has now topped 600,000 viewers for three-consecutive primetime Yankee games. The network is averaging 362,000 viewers for the season, up 26% from last year and on pace for an 11-year high.
For TBS, Tuesday’s game ranked second for the current season behind a “Subway Series” Mets-Yankees game in July (912K).
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 9.27, 9.28, YES Network)
