Fox’s Thursday night broadcast of the Cardinals-Giants game from Birmingham’s Rickwood Field drew a two-year Thursday viewership high for an MLB game.
Per a release, the game averaged 2.346 million viewers, the network’s best audience for a Thursday night game since September 2022.
The audience peaked roughly halfway through the Cardinals’ 6-5 win, with 2.559 million viewers tuning in during the 8:45 p.m. ET quarter-hour. It was also the most-watched MLB game of the season on any network in the San Francisco and St. Louis markets.
However, despite the plaudits Fox deservedly earned for its broadcast, the game was not the network’s most-watched game of the season, or even the month. The Dodgers-Yankees Saturday game earlier in June averaged 2.9 million viewers, the most-watched regular season MLB game across any network since 2022.
Viewership also slipped from the two Field of Dreams MLB games that Fox aired in 2021 and 2022. The 2021 game between the Yankees and White Sox drew 5.9 million viewers, while the 2022 game between the Reds and Cubs averaged 3.10 million viewers.
The future for another MLB game at Rickwood Field is unclear. Gerald Watkins, who spearheaded the idea and pitched it to MLB, said it seemed “very likely” Rickwood would host another game, while MLB was noncommital on the possibility. The Field of Dreams game could also return after being bounced from the schedule in 2023 due to construction, which has continued in 2024.
