If you didn’t watch the MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday night, you weren’t alone.
Fox announced that 7.634 million people watched the game, which is a record-low and the first time that the ASG has drawn under eight million viewers. The good news Fox touted in its release is that the MLB All-Star Game remains the most-watched All-Star Game in sports, ahead of the NFL Pro Bowl (6.69 million), the NBA All-Star Game (6.28 million), and the NHL All-Star Game (1.15 million).
A night earlier, the Home Run Derby drew 6.877 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2.
While baseball has traditionally been the most-watched All-Star Game in the US, its grip on that top spot has been slipping. Per Sports Media Watch’s excellent data, the game hasn’t topped ten million viewers since 2015, and hasn’t exceeded 12 million since 2010. 30 years ago, the midsummer classic was routinely bringing in 20 million viewers. Nearly two-thirds of that audience has dipped out since.
It’s truly a jarring decline, and I really don’t think there’s an easy way to stop this trend. Maybe the actual answer is not worry about the slide, take the “best baseball viewership since the World Series” title, and keep trying to grow the game’s audience.
