With no major professional competition, Major League Baseball has lots of eyeballs on it, and it seems to be taking advantage with strong ratings on ABC and Fox.
On Saturday, Baseball Night in America averaged 3.08 million viewers on Fox, peaking at 3.3 million from 9:30 to 9:43 p.m. The window featured three regional games: Milwaukee Brewers-Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox-Pittsburgh Pirates, and Arizona Diamondbacks-Atlanta Braves.
In Milwaukee, Fox reported a 9.1 rating and 33 share, meaning that 9.1% of all households were tuned into the game locally, and 33% of households watching TV were watching the game. Boston also saw strong viewership, with a 6.2 rating and 26 share. Pittsburgh and Los Angeles also had 20 shares.
The window was the second-most-watched of the season on Fox, behind New York Mets-Braves and St. Louis Cardinals-Chicago Cubs on July 4 (3.34 million). An analysis by Awful Announcing finds the window was the fifth-most-watched regular-season window on Fox since 2021, behind the Field of Dreams games in 2021 (5.87 million) and 2022 (3.10 million), a Red Sox-Yankees game during Aaron Judge’s Home Run Chase in 2022 (3.23 million), and July 4 in 2026.
Fox was not the only network to report strong MLB viewership this weekend. Cardinals-Cubs the following day, which was the third and final MLB game on ABC this season, averaged 2 million viewers. That is the most-watched game on ESPN networks this season and the most-watched regular-season MLB game on ESPN networks since August 2025.
Overall, games on Fox are averaging 2.35 million viewers through 18 windows this season. That is up 20% from last year’s full-season average (1.96 million). ESPN’s viewership average was not immediately available, though it has generally been lower than last year’s average (1.8 million) because ESPN moved from Sunday Night Baseball to mostly midweek telecasts this season, along with three broadcasts on ABC.
ESPN will have another opportunity for an MLB viewership benchmark next week. The network will return to Sunday Night Baseball for the first time this season on Sunday, Aug. 23 to broadcast Atlanta Braves-Milwaukee Brewers from Williamsport for the MLB Little League Classic.
NBC, which replaced ESPN as the home of Sunday Night Baseball, will instead air San Francisco Giants-Boston Red Sox in the afternoon.
About Manny Soloway
Manny Soloway is a Iowa based writer focusing on TV ratings. He is also the founder of the TV Media Blog substack.