Red Sox-Yankees attracts largest Game 1 Wild Card or Division Series TV audience in 20 years

NBC’s first crack at the MLB Wild Card round is turning out to be a viewership success.

Tuesday’s Game 1 between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees averaged 7.3 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, marking this most-watched Game 1 of any MLB playoff series in the Wild Card or Division round since 2006 (8.4 million viewers for a Tigers-Yankees ALDS game on Fox). Viewership for the game increased by 12 percent year-over-year versus the opening Red Sox-Yankees Wild Card game last season, which averaged 6.5 million viewers on ESPN. Tuesday’s audience peaked at 8.5 million viewers in the 9 p.m. ET quarter-hour.

NBC is in Year 1 of its three-year mini-deal with MLB that has the network taking over most of ESPN’s old Sunday Night Baseball package, including the Wild Card round.

Earlier on Tuesday, Game 1 of the Philadelphia Phillies-Atlanta Braves series got NBC off to a strong start. The game, which began at 2 p.m. ET, averaged 3.9 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, marking the most-watched afternoon Wild Card Game 1 since MLB instituted the best-of-three Wild Card format in 2020. Viewership for the game increased by 15 percent year-over-year, besting last season’s San Diego Padres-Chicago Cubs game on ABC (3.4 million viewers). The Braves’ win peaked at 5.0 million viewers in the 4:30 p.m. ET quarter-hour.

One could’ve reasonably expected the Red Sox-Yankees audience to increase with the game moving off of cable and onto broadcast television this year, but NBC has to be pleased that it also beat out last year’s ABC Wild Card Game 1 by a substantial margin. Of course, Phillies-Braves features two East Coast teams, whereas an afternoon Padres-Cubs game was likely hurt a bit by the time zones in the home markets.

Data for the two Peacock-exclusive Wild Card games on Tuesday was not immediately available.