Ratings Roundup: Fox's MLB All-Star Game Viewership Up 7%; ESPN's HR Derby Is Most Watched Since 2008

Ratings Roundup: Fox's MLB All-Star Game Viewership Up 7%; ESPN's HR Derby Is Most Watched Since 2008 By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Friday, July 21, 2017 - 8:00 am

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Ratings roundup is a rundown of ratings news from the past week and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, the MLB All-Star Game was up 7% across Fox, Fox Deportes, and Fox Sports Go; ESPN earned the best HR Derby audience since 2008 and its largest Hispanic audience ever; Roger Federer's historic Wimbledon title scored a 6% Total Live Audience increase over last year for ESPN; Univision averaged 1.2M viewers for the Gold Cup Group Stage; ESPN netted its best NBA Summer League audience ever; YES Network's Yankees ratings are up big time; and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series was up on Fox Business Network.

MLB All-Star Game Combined Viewership Up 7% Over Last Year

Fox Sports' coverage of the MLB All-Star Game delivered a combined 9.442 million viewers across FOX, FOX Deportes and FOX Sports GO, up 7% vs. last year's combined audience of 8.829 million viewers. FOX's broadcast scored a 5.5/11 fast-national household rating/share, with an average audience of 9.280 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. Tuesday night's fast-national viewership is up 7% over last year (vs. 8.707 million viewers) and is the biggest increase for an All-Star Game since 2008. FOX's total audience figure of 23 million viewers surpassed last year's figure by 6% (vs. 21.7 million viewers).

The telecast is FOX's highest-rated and most-watched event since the Daytona 500 in February and its best Tuesday night since Game 6 of the 2016 World Series in November. FOX enjoyed year-over-year ratings increases across all major demographics according to Nielsen Media Research, with Men 18-49 up 7% (3.1 vs. 2.9), Men 25-54 up 3% (3.7 vs. 3.6), Adults 18-49 up 5% (2.3 vs. 2.2), and Adults 25-54 up 4% (2.8 vs. 2.7). Initial tune-in for the game began at a 4.8/10 household rating/share (7.997 million viewers) from 8:16 PM ET - 8:30 PM ET and peaked at a 5.9/11 (10.024 million) from 10:00 - 10:15 PM ET.

FOX Deportes averaged 114,000 total viewers, up 18% over last year (vs. 97,000 viewers) and is the second most-watched MLB All-Star Game in the network's history.

FOX Sports GO, the live streaming platform that showcases all of FOX Sports' live events and studio programming, delivered an average-minute audience of 49,441, nearly doubling last year's average-minute audience of 25,057.

On FOX and FS1, 2017 MLB regular-season ratings are up a combined 4%, and across FOX Regional Sports Networks, MLB ratings are up 1% so far this season, year-over-year.

ESPN's Home Run Derby Most-Watched Since 2008

ESPN's 2017 T-Mobile Home Run Derby telecast was the most-watched since 2008 and the second-most watched since 1999, according to Fast Nationals from Nielsen. ESPN generated an average total live audience of 8,689,000 viewers, up 55% from last year. The total live audience includesESPN, ESPN2's Spanish-language simulcast, ESPN Deportes and English and Spanish streaming viewers. The Derby coverage propelled the network to win the night across all of television, including broadcast and cable. The Derby also marked the fifth-largest total live audience for any Major League Baseball event on ESPN and the fourth-largest total live audience for the event as far as Derby records go back (1998). It was also the most-streamed ESPN MLB event ever, drawing an average minute audience of 209,900 viewers. Locally, it was the highest-rated Derby in both the New York and Los Angeles markets as far as Derby records go back (1998).

ESPN Grows Hispanic Audience for HR Derby

ESPN's English and Spanish-language telecast of the 2017 Home Run Derby achieved the largest Hispanic audience for the event ever. Telecast averaged 1.09 million Hispanic viewers across ESPN, ESPN2 (Spanish-language simulcast) and ESPN Deportes combined. Telecast of the 2017 T-Mobile Home Run Derby on ESPN, ESPN2 (Spanish-language simulcast) and ESPN Deportes helped ESPN end the night as the most-watched English and Spanish-language sports cable network among Hispanics P2 . ESPN's English-language coverage of the 2017 T-Mobile Home Run Derby earned a 3.61 Hispanic household rating , the highest Hispanic audience for the event on ESPN since 2009. The 2017 T-Mobile Home Run Derby on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes was the most-watched Major League Baseball event among Hispanics, dating back to 1998. On ESPN Deportes, the 2017 T-Mobile Home Run Derby delivered a 0.56 % Hispanic Household rating, up 33% from 2016

Wimbledon Gentlemen's Championship Total Live Audience Up 6%

The total live audience for ESPN's coverage of the 2 hour, 15-minute Wimbledon Gentlemen's Championship on Sunday, July 16, was up 6% from last year (from 2,224,700 to 2,362,400). The TV portion of the audience was also up 6%, from 2,194,000 to 2,316,000 (P2 ); both years earned a 1.5 rating, according to Nielsen. Streaming had the highest increase of 51%, from 30,700 in 2016 to 46,400.

Univision Averages 1.2M viewers for Gold Cup Group Stage

With the CONCACAF Gold Cup Group Stage now complete (15 matches), Univision's networks averaged 1.2 million Total Viewers 2 and 631,000 Adults 18-49. Broadcast of the 14th edition CONCACAF Gold Cup Group Stage on the networks of Univision reached 19.9 million Total Viewers 2 and 9.1 million Adults 18-49. Gold Cup on Univision Deportes has out-delivered the Spanish-language broadcast of the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup by 19% with Total Viewers 2 and 21% with Adults 18-49.

Presentation of the Group Stage matches positioned UDN as the No. 2 sports network in primetime for July to-date among Total Viewer

LINK:	http://www.sportsvideo.org/2017/07/21/ratings-roundup-foxs-mlb-all-sta...
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