ESPN’s MLB Opening Day Games Attracted 4M Viewers

Major League Baseball started its Covid-19 regular season Thursday night with a record average 4 million viewers, the most-watched regular-season MLB game on any network since 2011, according to CNBC citing data from ESPN, which aired the opener.

The New York Yankees beat the Washington Nationals, 4-1, in MLB’s 2020 Opening Day on ESPN. New Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole, who signed a $324 million deal last December, earned his first victory for the team.

According to ESPN, the telecast was up “232% from last year’s Opening Night telecast between the Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners,” which drew 1.2 million viewers. The game peaked at 4.4 million viewers around 8:30 p.m.

If that data wasn’t enough for the doubleheader’s glory, the first game snagged an 8.4 rating in the D.C. market, which makes it the highest-rated regular season MLB game ever on ESPN in the region. Add to that, the second game snared a 6.8 rating in the City of Angels. That hits it out of the park to be the highest-rated regular-season MLB game on ESPN in the LA market, with the exception of the dramatic tiebreaker game against the Colorado Rockies on October 1, 2018.

“It also generated a 7.8 rating in the New York market, making it the highest-rated regular season MLB game on ESPN in the market since 2015,” ESPN said.

Also, the network’s second game, between the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers, generated an average of 2.7 million viewers, making it “ESPN’s most-watched MLB regular season late night ET game ever.”