Near as I can tell, ESPNU first became Nielsen-rated just over a year ago, just before the start of November 2012. Here are the 500 (technically 505) most-watched programs over the course of that first year of Nielsen rating from October 29, 2012 through October 27, 2013. A more up-to-date list that will be maintained on a weekly basis will be found here. All numbers from Son of the Bronx.
Sports TV Business
Sports Ratings Report for Week of October 28-November 3
Sports Ratings Highlights for Week of October 28-November 3
Numbers compiled from a variety of sources, including TV by the Numbers, The Futon Critic, Sports Media Watch, and Son of the Bronx.
|
Vwr (mil) |
HH |
18-49 |
Net |
|
|
NFL: Regional coverage |
23.987 |
|
7.7 |
CBS |
|
World Series, Game 6: |
19.178 |
|
5.7 |
FOX |
|
Sunday Night Football: |
17.04 |
|
6.3 |
NBC |
|
World Series, Game 5: |
14.446 |
|
4.1 |
FOX |
|
Monday Night Football |
11.284 |
7.0 |
4.2 |
ESPN+ |
|
CFB: Miami @ Florida State |
8.354 |
5.1 |
2.8 |
ABC |
|
Thursday Night Football |
6.915 |
4.2 |
2.5 |
NFLN+ |
|
NBA Opening Night: |
5.373 |
|
2.5 |
TNT |
|
CFB: Michigan @ Michigan State |
5.2 |
3.3 |
|
ABC |
|
CFB: Georgia v. Florida |
4.9 |
3.1 |
|
CBS |
|
NASCAR |
4.179 |
2.6 |
1.0 |
ESPN |
|
NBA Opening Night: |
3.571 |
|
1.8 |
TNT |
|
CFB: Regional coverage |
3.5 |
2.3 |
|
ABC |
|
CFB: Navy @ Notre Dame |
2.6 |
1.7 |
|
NBC |
|
Breeder’s Cup Classic |
2.118 |
0.4 |
NBC |
The Studio Show Scorecard for Week of October 28-November 3
|
PT Rnk |
TD Rnk |
Oct Distr. (000) |
PT Vwr (000) |
LW/LY | TD Vwr (000) |
TD HH | TD Vwr LW/LY |
|||
|
1 |
= |
1 |
= |
 |
98891 |
2382 |
-22% |
1176 |
0.8 |
-9% |
|
= |
= |
85% |
2382 |
-11% |
1176 |
-7% |
+2% |
|||
|
3 |
= |
2 |
= |
 |
98861 |
603 |
-18% |
329 |
0.2 |
+6% |
|
= |
= |
85% |
603 |
+30% |
329 |
+7% |
-2% |
|||
|
2 |
= |
3 |
= |
 |
72464 |
951 |
+25% |
283 |
0.2 |
+19% |
|
= |
= |
63% |
1298 |
+24% |
386 |
+12% |
+40% |
|||
|
6 |
-1 |
4 |
+1 |
 |
79145 |
172 |
+12% |
91 |
0.0 |
+10% |
|
= |
+4 |
68% |
215 |
+93% |
114 |
+2% |
+63% |
|||
|
8 |
= |
5 |
+2 |
 |
82964 |
99 |
+5% |
89 |
0.1 |
+18% |
|
+1 |
+4 |
72% |
118 |
+65% |
106 |
-4% |
+77% |
|||
|
4 |
= |
6 |
-2 |
 |
90121 |
236 |
+33% |
85 |
0.0 |
-23% |
|
+1 |
-2 |
78% |
259 |
+46% |
93 |
-30% |
-17% |
|||
|
5 |
+1 |
7 |
+2 |
 |
59950 |
179 |
+57% |
76 |
0.0 |
+66% |
|
-1 |
-2 |
52% |
295 |
+4% |
126 |
+104% |
-13% |
|||
|
7 |
= |
8 |
-2 |
 |
75603 |
102 |
+4% |
74 |
0.0 |
-8% |
|
= |
-2 |
65% |
133 |
+16% |
97 |
-23% |
+14% |
|||
|
9 |
= |
9 |
-1 |
 |
75829 |
64 |
-25% |
55 |
0.0 |
-10% |
|
-1 |
-2 |
65% |
83 |
+3% |
72 |
-7% |
-4% |
|||
|
10 |
= |
10 |
= |
 |
71026 |
30 |
-29% |
31 |
0.0 |
-32% |
|
+1 |
+1 |
61% |
42 |
+20% |
43 |
-60% |
+81% |
|||
I’m leaving Da Blog Poll up for another week and doing this for at least another two weeks so I can measure the impact on FS1 of the Oklahoma-Baylor game last week, which finally broke the FS1 record held by the launch-night UFC card and became the first FS1 program to crack the 2-million-viewer barrier. But be warned, the SSS the next two weeks could be pretty chaotic.
Earlier in the week Awful Announcing’s Joe Lucia used the same Son of the Bronx data I use to argue that, when compared to networks that aren’t ESPN, ESPN2, or NFL Network, FS1 is actually doing quite well. Unfortunately, he drew some flawed conclusions and ignored one undeniable fact in his data that shows how much FS1 really is struggling that doesn’t require a comparison to anyone but itself:
- He claims that FS1 is doing well in total day because of UEFA Champions League soccer, which, while it does better than the normal timeslot occupants at 3 and 4 ET, is barely a blip on the radar compared to FS1’s other sports events. It’s far more likely that FS1’s strong total-day performance has more to do with college football and NASCAR practice and qualifying.
- He claims that Crowd Goes Wild has consistently performed well compared to other daily afternoon and evening studio shows on FS1, NBCSN, and MLB Network, going toe to toe for the top spot with Intentional Talk among the shows he compares that aren’t NASCAR Race Hub… ignoring the fact that Crowd Goes Wild’s ratings are ridiculously, insanely inflated when it has NASCAR practice or qualifying as a lead-in.
Those two things, plus the dominance of Race Hub, point to one undeniable fact: a big chunk of FS1’s audience are still disproportionately holdovers from the Speed days, and at least at this point, fans of other sports have not yet found the channel. Yes, even UFC fans; they came out for launch night and have provided some of FS1’s most popular programming, and in fact Lucia also compared UFC Tonight to the daily shows and it wound up coming in second, but that launch night card wasn’t even the most-watched card on cable of 2013, and ratings for The Ultimate Fighter are way down compared to last season on FX. That Speed did well enough that the rest of the FS1 schedule is still comparable to NBCSN and MLBN doesn’t really hide that.
What can be said about FS1 compared to its competition?
- FS1 is fairly consistently placing fourth in total day and primetime behind ESPN, ESPN2, and NFL Network… except this week when it fell to sixth in total day behind the Comcast networks.
- Fox Soccer Daily is doing poorly compared to ESPNFC later in the day, which may sound like a bad comparison until you realize that ESPNFC is one of the worst-performing shows on ESPN2.
- When insulated from NASCAR lead-ins, Crowd Goes Wild is running neck-in-neck with Pro Football Talk, but that may say more about the problems PFT and NBCSN in general are having. CGW could not compete with Intentional Talk during baseball season. Fox Football Daily, meanwhile, seems to lose substantially from its CGW lead-in, which means it’s substantially behind PFT and any other regularly scheduled show in its time slot.
- First-run airings of Fox Sports Live generally don’t fall much below 30,000, which is roughly at CGW’s level, but Sundays can be very vulnerable, at least during football season. In general FSL is very lead-in-dependent, and its re-airs tend to be susceptible to random fluctuations; numbers can get truly pathetic for late-night and early-morning re-airs.
- Fox College Saturday was consistently beating college football pre-game coverage on ESPNU… except for this week.
- This week, without NASCAR RaceDay or other NASCAR coverage as a lead-in, Fox NFL Kickoff still attracted over 100,000 viewers. That put it behind other NFL pregame shows (including Fantasy Football Now, bumped to ESPNEWS for the New York City Marathon, NFL Gameday First earlier in the day, and the Saturday morning ESPN2 airing of NFL Matchup), but did beat re-airs of ESPN2 programming on ESPNEWS earlier and re-airs of NBA Gametime on NBATV. Of course, that’s sort of damning with faint praise, but it did manage to beat Morning Drive on Golf Channel earlier.
All numbers are in thousands of viewers and are from Son of the Bronx.
Sports Ratings Report for Week of October 21-27
Sports Ratings Highlights for Week of October 21-27
Numbers compiled from a variety of sources, including TV by the Numbers, The Futon Critic, Sports Media Watch, and Son of the Bronx.
|
Vwr (mil) |
HH |
18-49 |
Net |
|
|
NFL: Regional coverage |
25.499 |
15.3 |
8.9 |
FOX |
|
Sunday Night Football: |
16.893 |
|
6.3 |
NBC |
|
World Series, Game 4: |
15.975 |
|
4.6 |
FOX |
|
NFL: Regional coverage |
15.5 |
9.7 |
|
FOX |
|
NFL: Regional coverage (or 4 PM ET) |
15.2 |
9.3 |
|
CBS |
|
Monday Night Football: |
14.383 |
9.1 |
4.9 |
ESPN+ |
|
World Series, Game 1: |
14.4 |
|
4.3 |
FOX |
|
World Series, Game 2: |
13.429 |
|
3.6 |
FOX |
|
World Series, Game 3: |
12.473 |
7.4 |
3.3 |
FOX |
|
Thursday Night Football: |
4.94 |
3.1 |
1.8 |
NFLN+ |
|
NASCAR |
4.316 |
2.7 |
1.0 |
ESPN |
|
CFB: Penn State @ Ohio State |
4.059 |
2.5 |
1.1 |
ABC |
|
CFB: Tennessee @ Alabama |
4.03 |
2.6 |
|
CBS |
|
CFB: Texas Tech @ Oklahoma (part 1) |
3.8 |
2.4 |
|
FOX |
|
CFB: UCLA @ Oregon |
3.674 |
2.3 |
1.2 |
ESPN |
|
CFB: Michigan State @ Illinois |
3.3 |
2.2 |
|
ABC |
The Studio Show Scorecard for Week of October 21-27
|
PT Rnk |
TD Rnk |
Oct Distr. (000) |
PT Vwr (000) |
LW/LY | TD Vwr (000) |
TD HH | TD Vwr LW/LY |
|||
|
1 |
= |
1 |
= |
|
98891 |
3055 |
+14% |
1295 |
0.9 |
+6% |
|
= |
= |
85% |
3055 |
+14% |
1295 |
+6% |
+9% |
|||
|
3 |
= |
2 |
= |
|
98861 |
731 |
+15% |
309 |
0.2 |
+4% |
|
= |
= |
85% |
731 |
+10% |
309 |
+3% |
+4% |
|||
|
2 |
= |
3 |
= |
|
72464 |
762 |
-17% |
238 |
0.2 |
-13% |
|
= |
= |
63% |
1040 |
-6% |
325 |
-12% |
-6% |
|||
|
4 |
= |
4 |
= |
|
90121 |
177 |
-34% |
111 |
0.1 |
-23% |
|
= |
= |
78% |
194 |
+33% |
121 |
-20% |
+3% |
|||
|
5 |
= |
5 |
= |
|
79145 |
154 |
-25% |
83 |
0.0 |
+5% |
|
+1 |
+3 |
68% |
192 |
+40% |
104 |
+22% |
+85% |
|||
|
7 |
+2 |
6 |
+3 |
|
75603 |
98 |
+44% |
81 |
0.0 |
+60% |
|
n/a |
n/a |
65% |
128 |
n/a |
106 |
+132% |
n/a |
|||
|
8 |
= |
7 |
-1 |
|
82964 |
94 |
+25% |
75 |
0.1 |
+28% |
|
-1 |
-2 |
72% |
112 |
-10% |
90 |
+103% |
+25% |
|||
|
9 |
-2 |
8 |
-1 |
|
75829 |
85 |
+6% |
61 |
0.0 |
+6% |
|
-1 |
-1 |
65% |
111 |
+33% |
80 |
+15% |
+28% |
|||
|
6 |
= |
9 |
-1 |
|
59950 |
114 |
-7% |
46 |
0.0 |
-12% |
|
-1 |
-3 |
52% |
188 |
-3% |
76 |
-16% |
-8% |
|||
|
10 |
= |
10 |
= |
|
71026 |
42 |
+27% |
45 |
0.0 |
+14% |
|
-1 |
-1 |
61% |
58 |
+56% |
63 |
+13% |
+34% |
|||
Okay, look, I’ll level with you. I thought I had found a way to not have this project monopolize all my time when I started it, but that clearly isn’t the case. These posts are really tedious, starting with scrolling through each week’s schedule and making note of any pre-emptions or modifications, continuing as I go through each individual show – something that seems like it goes by pretty breezily as I’m doing it (so long as I’m not doing a repeating nightly highlight show that’s not SportsCenter, especially if it’s leading out of a live sporting event… shudder) but where the sheer quantity of shows causes it to bog down, all for something of tangential importance at best to what I personally am really interested in, which is the ratings for the actual sporting events.
The week-by-week fluctuations in the shows aren’t very important, and any changes are going to occur slowly over a very long term, other than in-season fluctuations for the sport-specific networks, although I am interested in the short-term bump shows on smaller networks (especially Fox Sports 1) get from popular sporting events. The main reason I decided to do this is because I like the concept, but all my data comes from a single site that anyone can check for themselves (and they are), even if I give the same data in a more user-friendly format, and I’m not getting much of any sort of bump for these posts (not that I’m getting any for the main ratings posts either, but I’m playing a long game there). I’ll do next week’s post, but I have a new Da Blog Poll up asking if I should keep doing these.
All numbers are in thousands of viewers and are from Son of the Bronx.
2013-14 College Basketball TV Schedule
Here is every men’s college basketball game on national television this season, as compiled by mattsarzsports.com. Refer to that site for more details and updates throughout the season. Be careful when opening this post, as there are more than a thousand games on here complete with countdowns.
2013 MLB Ratings Wrap-Up, Part III: Postseason Games
Here are the viewership numbers for every game of the MLB postseason, including 18-49 ratings for most games, sorted by viewership and including the tiebreaker game between the Rays and Rangers. Click here to see them sorted by series.
The Red Sox’ clincher in Game 6 of the World Series was the most-watched baseball game of the year, attracting over 19 million viewers. Unsurprisingly, especially with the Red Sox in the ALCS and World Series, every primetime game on Fox beat every game on TBS; in fact, the most watched game on TBS was a division series game, the Cardinals’ clincher in Game 5 against the Pirates. This also meant the Red Sox were involved in the 11 most-watched games of the postseason.
The most-watched game on TBS outside of primetime likely depends on definition; either Tigers-Athletics Game 4, which began at 5 PM ET, or Cardinals-Dodgers Game 5, which began at 4 PM ET. Both games had over 3.7 million viewers. The two games starting at 3 PM ET were the least-watched games on TBS; the Red Sox factor could not save Rays-Red Sox Game 1 from being the single least-viewed game on TBS. Depending on definition, the least-viewed primetime game was either Pirates-Cardinals Game 1 at 5 PM ET; the Rays-Rangers tiebreaker; or Tigers-Athletics Game 2.
28 games had more viewers than the most-watched regular season game window of the season. For perspective, a total of 36 or 37 games aired on Fox and TBS. If the Rays-Rangers tiebreaker is considered a regular season game, it was the second-most viewed of the season on cable; in all, 19 of 24 or 25 games on TBS attracted more viewers than any regular-season game on ESPN.
Of MLB Network’s two games, Athletics-Tigers Game 3 attracted a larger audience with 912,000 viewers. Pirates-Cardinals Game 2 lagged behind with 832,000 viewers.
All numbers from TVbytheNumbers, The Futon Critic, and Son of the Bronx with additional info from Sports Media Watch (see link above).
2013 MLB Ratings Wrap-Up, Part II: MLB Network Regular Season Games
Here are the viewership numbers for most if not all games on MLB Network for the 2013 season.
Seven of the top eight, nine of the top eleven, twelve of the top sixteen, and fourteen of the twenty most-watched games on MLB Network involved either the Red Sox or Yankees, with the top game being an “MLB Network Showcase” game between the teams at Fenway Park September 13 that attracted 450,000 viewers. Games between the Red Sox and Yankees also finished fifth, seventh, eighth, tenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth. The Yankees also produced the most-watched “matinee” game, when they hosted the Twins July 13 and attracted 408,000 viewers. The most-watched American League game not to involve either team was the Orioles at the White Sox on the Fourth of July, which attracted 319,000 viewers, only enough for 22nd among all MLB Network games.
The National League was not much better balanced. The five most-watched NL games involved either the Cardinals or Braves, including two games between the teams; in fact, the most-watched NL game not to involve either team, the Giants-Reds “Showcase” game July 2, didn’t do much better than Orioles-White Sox at 320,000 viewers. A Cubs-Braves game on April 5 was the most-watched game not to involve the Yankees with 433,000 viewers. The Mets were able to attract audiences when they were playing the Yankees; of the four games involving the Yankees and Red Sox in the top eleven that weren’t against one another, two were part of the Subway Series, including a game at Citi Field on May 27 that placed second overall (and was the most-watched non-“Showcase” game) with 444,000 viewers.
However, having one of the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, or Braves was no guarantee of getting a big audience, especially for an afternoon game. The least-watched game in my records was between the Royals and Braves on April 17, a game only 80,000 people watched. The least-watched primetime game was Nationals-Cardinals September 23, with 115,000 viewers, which actually edged out a Rangers-Yankees afternoon game, and the least-watched “Showcase” game was the Civil Rights Game between the Rangers and White Sox that attracted 173,000 viewers August 24, followed by Cardinals-Reds June 7 with 215,000 viewers.
All numbers from Son of the Bronx.
The Problem With Internet Companies Getting Major Sports Rights
I have a much longer series of posts planned on the broader issues surrounding the current era of sports on television, but I wanted to make this particular point because I think it’s particularly important.
The NFL is reportedly still considering an expansion and splitting of its Thursday night package to sell to another partner, and is reportedly interested in potentially selling games to a tech company like Google or Netflix. This comes as the NBA, still in the process of negotiating its next TV package, has been speculated to potentially also sell games to a tech company. And that comes amidst years of speculation that tech companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, or Netflix, could be the best candidates to challenge ESPN and completely upend the sports TV wars.
But I’m still unconvinced that Internet companies are really the threat they’re made out to be. In my opinion, the speculation surrounding them is mostly superficial and based on only a few factors, without seriously considering the circumstances and what their entry into the market would actually mean, and I don’t believe they’re a realistic candidate to score sports rights, or that if they are that it would turn out to be a good idea, or that if it does that they would really be as revolutionary as they’re cracked up to be.
For one thing, I’m having a hard time seeing exactly how tech companies would distribute games and make money off them. I can’t imagine Google would simply slap games on YouTube, as that would mean they would need to collect money through advertising alone, when the great advantage of sports networks like ESPN is their dual revenue stream of advertising and subscriber fees. That means tech companies would need to restrict access to the games in some way, and most of the options don’t sound very promising. Would Apple restrict games to users of iOS devices and Apple TV, or Google restrict them to users of Android devices and Google TV? That seems like it would have the potential for disaster as people would be shut out for choosing the wrong product, especially if we’re talking about being the equivalent of a national television partner as opposed to getting a piece of the out-of-market package. A company like Netflix could distribute games to its subscribers, but that would be the equivalent of a premium channel at best. The best-case scenario probably involves Facebook or Google effectively blackmailing people into signing up for their services in order to view the games, but even then I’m not seeing how that would help them raise enough money to be competitive with sports networks.
And none of these approaches would avoid the other issues, certainly not the issue of being a middleman. The nature of TV is such that sports benefit from distributing their games through middlemen, which is why none of the sports leagues that own their own networks have abandoned their relationships with other partners; from its humble beginnings as the Outdoor Life Network, the entity now known as the NBC Sports Network has acquired more and more properties to obtain more distribution than any sport-specific network other than Golf Channel and, until this past August, Speed – and those two had a multiple-year head start on gaining distribution before the full effect of the sports TV wars set in. In theory at least, fans of any of its properties can drop in on coverage of any other property, thus broadening the exposure to that property. But the open nature of the Internet already provides exposure to anyone who wants to drop in, so I’m not sure what sports leagues would gain from selling games to Google when they could cut out the middleman and distribute games themselves. In this sense, Major League Baseball has already entered this territory; its MLB.tv service regularly offers one game for free each day to non-customers.
But none of that begins to approach the most fundamental issue, the basic distinction between the Internet and television, which I laid out before: the Internet is good at distributing many programs to a few people, but television is good at distributing a few programs to many people. The Internet effectively consists of one “channel” for each of its customers, meaning you have a channel that you can program yourself, allowing you to watch whatever you want whenever you want. But if many people want to watch the same thing all at once, i.e., some sort of live event (i.e., a live sporting event), they all have to watch it on their own individual “channels” – the server has to serve the event to each individual computer that asks for it. We saw the result with the massive issues NBC had with streaming of events at the London 2012 Olympics, and those didn’t reach more than a million or so people at a time. Things haven’t improved that much since then:
Bandwidth issues still occur when it comes to big webcasts like YouTube Music Awards. NFL, plz don't yet exclusively air your games online
— Douglas Pucci (@SonOfTheBronx) November 4, 2013
Perhaps the issues surrounding large-scale Internet streaming can be fixed with bigger pipes and more investment in servers and the like, but this structural issue will remain: why distribute the same event many times to each individual customer if you could find a way to distribute the event once and allow anyone, at least with the proper credentials, to hop on the stream with no additional strain on your end? On this front, it’s instructive to see how the mobile world, which (at least at the moment) already lives in the world where all television is over the Internet, is dealing with this issue, and it’s clear that they at least recognize it: AT&T has begun work on a network that will precisely allow them to push video out to many different devices at once. One thing strikes me about this project: it is a completely separate service that requires use of completely separate spectrum from AT&T’s normal 3G/4G network (indeed, spectrum that had most recently been used for a similar service). In other words, once you begin broadcasting the same signal for any device to hop on to, it is no longer the Internet, at least not as we know it. In this particular case, it becomes something fundamentally not that different from over-the-air broadcast television – indeed the spectrum in question may well have once been TV spectrum.
Once the distinction between and relative strengths of TV and the Internet are recognized, it’s clear that at least on a large scale, showing a single live event for everyone to view at once is something the Internet simply is not suited for. The great advantages of the Internet for viewing video are the ability to view it anywhere you want and to watch whatever you want whenever you want, but only the former applies to live events like sports, and even that goes away if the technology is developed to deliver content to many devices at once. Broadcast television is already halfway there, but is currently only reaching mobile devices through optional kludges attached to the existing broadcast standard, rather than having one standard suited to reaching all devices whether stationary or on the go. If the television industry recognizes its place in a future where Internet distribution of video reaches maturity – a place where its purpose becomes refocused specifically on the broadcasting of live events – adopts a standard that maximizes its investment in its existing infrastructure and reorganizes its business accordingly, it can survive and effectively compete in that future for years to come, even if that future is substantially different from what exists now.
2013 MLB Ratings Wrap-Up, Part I: Fox and ESPN Regular Season Games
Here are the viewership numbers for all 100 games on Fox and ESPN this season. Numbers for games on TBS are not available.
The most watched regular season broadcast of the season was a “Baseball Night in America” broadcast on Fox headlined by the Yankees at the Orioles on June 29, which had 3.5 million viewers. Second place was another Baseball Night in America broadcast on June 1 headlined by Red Sox-Yankees, with 3.3 million viewers. The most-watched broadcast on ESPN was another Yankees-Red Sox game with 3.1 million viewers on August 18, which was also the only ESPN game to earn at least a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating. The most-watched game not involving the Yankees was a Baseball Night in America broadcast headlined by the Angels at the Red Sox with 3.1 million viewers on June 8, and the most-watched game not involving the Yankees or Red Sox was a Baseball Night in America broadcast headlined by Rangers-Cardinals on June 22, also with 3.1 million viewers. Fox’s most-watched window outside of June came on July 13, a Baseball Night in America broadcast headlined by Cardinals-Cubs that attracted just under 3 million viewers.
The most-watched Fox window outside of Baseball Night in America was either their first one on April 6, headlined by Yankees-Tigers, with 2.9 million viewers, or another Yankees-Red Sox game on July 20, which did not have viewers reported but had a better rating (2.0 v. 1.9). The most-watched afternoon window not to involve the Yankees came on August 3 and was headlined by Rangers-Athletics. Yankees-Red Sox made up ESPN’s two most-watched games of the year and three of the top four, with third place going to Cardinals-Braves on July 28. Rounding out the top five on ESPN was Dodgers-Giants on May 5, followed by the season-opening game between the Rangers and Astros on March 31 – which only barely edged Fox’s least watched “Baseball Night in America” window, which came May 25 and was headlined by Cardinals-Dodgers. ESPN’s most-watched broadcast outside of Sunday Night Baseball came on August 26, a game between the Reds and Cardinals that attracted 1.3 million viewers – less than Fox’s least-watched Saturday window, which saw 1.4 million viewers on September 21 for a lineup headlined by Giants-Yankees.
Only two games on ESPN2 attracted over a million viewers, both in April: the Sunday Night Baseball game between the Angels and Rangers opposite the Women’s Final Four (1.8 million viewers) and an opening-day game between the Phillies and Braves (1.0 million viewers). The next most-watched games on ESPN2 were a Sunday Night Baseball game between the Mets and Nationals on September 1 (853,000 viewers, the only Sunday Night Baseball game with under a million viewers); a Red Sox-Yankees game on April 3 (833,000 viewers); two late night opening-week games, Giants-Dodgers on April 3 (708,000 viewers) and Cardinals-Diamondbacks on April 1 (704,000 viewers); and Dodgers-Yankees on June 19 (500,000 viewers).
The least-watched game on an ESPN network was Phillies-Reds April 17 on ESPN2, which attracted 296,000 viewers. The least-watched game on regular ESPN that did not spend a substantial amount of time on ESPN2 was Red Sox-Rays May 15 with 467,000 viewers – still higher than the most-watched game on MLB Network.
ESPN numbers from Son of the Bronx with 18-49 numbers from The Futon Critic and TVbytheNumbers. Fox numbers from Sports Media Watch and SportsBusiness Daily; numbers in gray were not available and are interpolated.