Sports Ratings Tracker

Coverage of the Little League Baseball tournament averaged 812,000 viewers across the ESPN family of networks, up 17% from last year, with the Little League World Series averaging 1.0 million (+2%).

Last Saturday’s United States Championship (Las Vegas-Fairfield, Conn.) was the most-watched game of the tournament with 2.8 million viewers, followed by the World Championship the following day at 2.4 million (Taiwan-Las Vegas). Both games were down from last year’s comparable audiences of 3.0 and 3.5 million respectively.

The International Championship (Taiwan-Aruba) drew 1.3 million.

Sunday’s championship game of the Little League Softball World Series averaged 1.44 million viewers on ABC, surpassing 2002 to rank as the highest average on record for the event. The game, which peaked with nearly three million viewers, more-than-doubled last year. Unlike last year, it had a live sports lead-in from a Lynx-Liberty WNBA Finals rematch (977K).

The full Little League Softball World Series averaged 347,000 viewers, up two-thirds from last year.

In other Little League action, the baseball regionals averaged 520,000 on the ESPN networks — up 80% from last year and a three-year high.