It’s been a great week for baseball ratings, with ESPN’s New York Yankees – Houston Astros broadcast holding up as the highest-watched wild card game in history for a grand total of just one day. ESPN initially announced a 5.7 U.S. household rating for that game, but later revised that down to a 4.9 with an average of 7,604,000 viewers, which was still a wild-card record. TBS’ broadcast of the NL wild-card game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs Wednesday managed to top ESPN’s revised numbers, though, announcing a 5.0 final rating and an average of 8.3 million viewers. That gave them the largest MLB cable audience since Game 5 of the 2011 National League Division Series, which was also on TBS. From Turner’s release:
TBS’ exclusive presentation of the 2015 MLB National League Wild Card game telecast presented by Hankook Tire – the Chicago Cubs defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-0 to advance to the NL Division Series – averaged 8.3 million total viewers and a 5.0 U.S. HH rating to deliver the highest rated and most viewed Wild Card Game ever and the largest audience for an MLB game telecast on cable television since 2011 (NLDS Game 5: St. Louis Cardinals vs. Philadelphia Phillies, also airing on TBS, with an average of 8.4 million total viewers and a 5.1 U.S. HH rating), according to Nielsen Fast Nationals.
Last night’s NL Wild Card telecast – peaking with an average of 9.7 million total viewers and a 5.8 U.S. HH rating from 10-10:15 p.m. ET – won the night across all of cable television, based on local metered market averages. The telecast is up 60% among total viewers and 52% in U.S. HH rating over last year’s Wild Card game airing on TBS between the Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals (5.2 million total viewers; 3.3 U.S. HH rating).
Locally, the telecast earned a 21.8 HH rating in Chicago to produce the best rating for any MLB game in the market since the 2005 World Series and the decisive Game 4 between the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros. In Pittsburgh, the game registered a 26.2 HH rating for a 16% increase over the comparable NL Wild Card telecast last year (also featuring the Pirates).
Additionally, last night’s NL Wild Card telecast garnered double-digit growth across all key demos over last year including increases of 42% among People 18-34, 51% in People 25-54, 34% in Men 18-34 and 46% in Men 25-54.
Wednesday’s NL Wild Card Game also delivered double-digit increases across Turner’s TV Everywhere platforms with live streaming coverage up 58% among unique visits, 23% in total minutes consumed and 15% in live video starts.
While Pittsburgh drew a larger share than Chicago, those Chicago numbers are highly significant here thanks to the size of that market. That’s part of why Newsday‘s Neil Best says the NLDS matchups are so perfect for Turner:
The disparity in ratings appeal, historical mojo and general buzz between the National League Division Series on Turner and American League Division Series on FS1 (and MLB Network) is among the greatest in sports media history.
Cubs vs. Cardinals and Mets vs. Dodgers? Really?
If on Opening Day you had invited Turner executives to name their dream matchups, then spiked their hot cocoas with Sodium Pentathol, the answer would have gone something like this: Cubs vs. Cardinals, Mets vs. Dodgers.
Meanwhile, at Fox … the Yankees’ loss to the ‘Stros in Tuesday’s wild-card game left a bit of a marketing challenge.
It’s going to be interesting to see how the ratings shake out as these series progress. Will Toronto (and all their Canadian viewers who don’t count for U.S. TV purposes) be as disastrous for Fox as many think? Can the Rangers and Astros draw significant attention in football-mad Texas? And will the Royals’ dominance of their local market be enough to help boost national ratings? Meanwhile, will Cubs-Cardinals and Mets-Dodgers actually draw as well as everyone expects? How those questions are answered may determine the relative success of Fox and Turner this postseason, and Turner’s certainly off to a good start with this wild-card record.
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