AdAge did a story about the viewership of the MLB All-Star Game which took place on Tuesday evening.
(The Boys of Bummer: MLB All-Star Game Ratings Fall to a New Low Midsummer Classic Draws Just 8.71 Million Viewers).
Yeah, the stats are brutal as it appears that this year’s “exhibition” (American League’s 4-2 victory over the National League) is the only time in 50 years of Nielsen tracking, that fewer than 10 million viewers tuned in.
Pretty brutal, right? Well, since we are the curious types, we did some poking around and talking among ourselves resulting in the following possible reasons for the ratings slip.
- To start, there wasn’t much of a compelling storyline like two years ago, when the All-Star Game pulled double duty as a tribute to retiring New York Yankees great Derek Jeter, Fox averaged a more princely 11.3 million viewers and a 7.0 household rating.
- Similar to the situation with Olympic Golf, a lot of “stars” weren’t playing (injuries versus opting out). That makes less of a “must view” event.
- We believe it was Day 7 of Pokemon Go — which has participants outside trying to catch them all. Seems like a better use of a summer evening. 15 million downloads and counting!
- A “must monitor” event? Perhaps, people opted to follow along via Twitter, BleacherReport, MLB’s own app (MLB at Bat).
- Fox fatigue could have played into it as Joe Buck went from U.S. Open over Father’s Day weekend to baseball expert less than a month later. Some pretty harsh but spot on commentary can be found in this piece.
Worth noting…
As lame as the ratings were for the MLB All-Star Game and the MLB Home Run Derby, they still were better than NHL’s Stanley Cup Finals — sad but true.
Thankfully for the hard core baseball fans, the mid-summer break is over and we’re back on!
Cubs just shut out the Rangers — Go Cubs Go (flying the “W” at Wrigley)!
That’s a Wrap!
Thanks for reading and #SCMF !
—The Gang
Bonus Content
Why is it during #ASG we get the best players and worst announcer, aka #JoeBuck?Meanwhile Vin Scully sits at home watching. Thx @FOXSports.
— Jeremy Art (@jeremyart) July 13, 2016
Speak Your Mind