What a moment for Derek Jeter last night. Pretty much everything you could want to see in his final game at Yankee Stadium happened, save for the great shortstop running into the stands and kicking Alex Rodriguez out of the building. When he got a walk off hit to finish off the Orioles, Twitter and Facebook and the Bronx collectively lost it.
The game averaged at 10.6 rating on the YES Network from 7-10:30 p.m. ET in the New York market, a massive rating for baseball in the city nowadays. Consider that Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS drew a 14.4 rating. The game peaked with a 16.5 rating from 10:15-10:30 when Jeter got the game winning hit. More than a million households in New York were watching that moment.
That said, Jeter’s Bronx swan song could still not take down mighty football. The Giants 45-14 mashing of Washington drew a combined 14.1 rating on CBS 2 and NFL Network in the New York market. We have timeslot breakdowns for CBS during that time period, and the only period of the night when CBS got severely decimated by baseball was from 10-10:30, both approaching and at the moment of Jeter’s walk off hit, when the number dropped to a 9.0. That said, once the clock hit 10:30, viewers seemed to return to the game, despite it being a blowout.
Regardless, it’s a great moment for baseball. The New York market has been in a bit of a lull with the game the past couple of years with the Yankees inconsistent and the Mets a non-factor. Some big moments, like this, have shown that if baseball becomes exciting and fills you with emotion, New York will return.
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