Ratings Roundup: ESPN Sees 22% Increases on WNBA Coverage; Aaron Judge's Hunt for 61 Home Runs Fuels Viewership on YES Network By SVG Staff
Friday, September 23, 2022 - 7:45 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, Disney Networks score a season of viewership wins with expanded WNBA coverage, YES Network sees viewership spike amid Aaron Judge's chase for 61 home runs, and more.
Disney Networks Score a Season of Viewership Ws with Expanded WNBA Coverage in 2022 Disney Networks expanded coverage of the WNBA in 2022 to televise more games than ever before, leading to viewership growth throughout both the regular season and playoffs. Together, ESPN and ABC televised 49 games from Tip-Off week through the conclusion of the WNBA Finals on Sunday as ESPN continued its 26-year relationship with the WNBA, dating back to the inaugural season in 1997.
As the exclusive home of the WNBA postseason, Disney Networks televised 49 games as part of the league's new expanded playoff format with the Las Vegas Aces securing the franchise's first championship, defeating the Connecticut Sun in the best-of-five series. After 23 games, the 2022 postseason averaged 456,000 viewers - up 22% over 2021's postseason - making it the most-viewed WNBA postseason since 2007.
WNBA on ESPN Viewership Milestones in 2022:
Full 2022 Season (Regular Post): most viewed since 2006, averaging 412,000 viewers (49 games), up 22% form 2021.
Semifinals: Most-viewed semifinal round since 2014, averaging 488,000 viewers (nine games), up 45% from 2021.
First Round: Most-viewed opening round since 2007, up 50% from the first and second rounds last year, averaging 392,000 over 10 games.
Regular Season: Most-viewed regular season since 2008. The WNBA on ESPN Presented by Google season (25 games across Disney Networks) averaged 372,000 viewers, a 20% spike versus 2021. The Aces-Storm regular season finale on ABC averaged 835,000 - the most-viewed WNBA game across all networks since May 17, 2008.
All-Star Game: Most-viewed All-Star Game since 2015. The 2022 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game on ABC averaged 734,000 viewers, up 53% from 2021's All-Star Game.
WNBA Draft: Most-viewed WNBA Draft since 2004. The 2022 WNBA Draft Presented by State Farm averaged 403,000 viewers, up 20% from 2021.
ESPN Social doubled the number of WNBA-focused social posts across the company's various accounts in 2022. Those efforts resulted in 1.1 billion impressions, a 20% increase over 2021, and more than 193 million total video views, a staggering 90% jump from the prior year.
This Week's Yankees Ratings on YES Network New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge and his chase for 61 regular season home runs is capturing the attention of the entire baseball world, but the outfielder's attraction can be seen during a pair of games vs. the Pittsburgh Pirates this week.
Wednesday night's telecast averaged 600,000 Total Viewers in the New York DMA, peaking at 756,000 Total Viewers during the 9:30-9:45 pm quarter-hour.
The 600,000 Average Total Viewers marks the YES Network's best non-Subway Series game telecast in four years, since Red Sox-Yankees on May 8, 2018, which averaged 603,000 Total Viewers.
The game was also the 28th game out of YES' last 36 Primetime Yankees games that have been No. 1 in the New York DMA in Total Viewers.
In addition, the game was also the most-streamed game ever on the YES App, eclipsing 105,000 unique viewers.
Tuesday night's telecast averaged 539,000 Total Viewers in the New York DMA, peaking at 676,000 Total Viewers during the 9:45-10:00 pm quarter-hour.
The 539,000 Average Total Viewers marks YES' best Primetime non-Subway Series telecast in four years (557,000 Average Total Viewers for YES' July 2, 2018 Braves-Yankees).
On pace to have its best Yankees season in 11 years (since 2011), the YES Network is averaging 354,000 Total Viewers for its Yankees telecasts this season, a 24% year-over-year increase from last year. Last night marked the 37th YES game this season to average 400,000 Total Viewers or more. By comparison, YES only had nine such games during the 2021 season.
Disney Networks Averaged Nearly 21 Million Viewers During Monday Night Football's Two Hours of Overlapping Action During Monday Night Football's Week 2, Disney Networks averaged 20.6 million viewers (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and ESPN ) when Tennessee-Buffalo and Minnesota-Philadelphia were shown simultaneously, a two hour period (8:30 - 10:30 p.m. ET). The 20.6 million viewers bested the record-setting Monday Night Football Week 1 audience across the same five networks (19.85 million viewers from 8:14 - 11:18 p.m. on Sept.19) and peaked at 22.2 million viewers from 9:15 - 9:30 pm. The impressive combined viewership mounted despite the Buffalo Bills scoring 31 unanswered points on their way to a lopsided 41-7 victory, and the Eagles jumping out a 24-7 lead during the overlapping period.
Examining closer, fans watched nearly four billion minutes of Monday Night Football in Week 2 across the same Disney Networks, which is up from the 3.7 billion minutes watched for ESPN's most recent Monday Night Football doubleheader in 2020 (Week 1 with kickoffs at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.). Additionally, the 3.9 billion minutes watched is up 56% from a standard, standalone Monday Night Football game (approximately 2.6 billion minutes on a weekly basis since 2006).
Individually, ABC and ESPN were the most-viewed networks of the night across all of television, and both games were the most-watched telecasts of the night. Minnesota-Philadelphia averaged 12.9 million viewers (ABC/ESPN ) and Tennessee-Buffalo averaged 7.9 million viewers (ESPN/ESPN2/ES
North America Stories
07/05/2026
Multi-year partnership positions Victory+ as a free home for Dallas Cowboys orig...
07/05/2026
From sideline reporting to directing and producing, the talented sophomore is building a well-rounded foundation for a career in live sports production
In the ...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital has received two Future Best of Show awards at NAB Show 2026. The COBALT blueCORE platform was recognized by TV Tech, and the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-...
07/05/2026
ESPN analyst Mina Kimes will host the televised semifinals and finals of the 202...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI, the global film streaming platform, has selected Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner. Bitmovin's encoding infrastru...
07/05/2026
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and the U.S. Soccer Federation have announced...
07/05/2026
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) and Victory have announced a regional broadcast partnership bringing live match coverage to fans across the greater Los Angeles...
07/05/2026
Spiideo has announced the launch of AI Highlights inside Spiideo Play, its automated sports production platform. AI Highlights combines video, event data, audio...
07/05/2026
Leostream Corporation has announced a unified remote access ecosystem for high-p...
07/05/2026
The Atlanta Dream has partnered with Victory to stream all locally broadcast Dream games for free, expanding the team's digital distribution strategy and g...
07/05/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the appointment of Marc Engroff as Chief Fin...
07/05/2026
SES and ARD, Germany's largest public broadcasting network, have announced a long-term extension of their satellite distribution partnership through 2039. U...
07/05/2026
UpLight Technologies delivers a flexible video and lighting system for a new televised sportLaunching the Pro Cheer League required more than creating a compell...
07/05/2026
Full Day Productions and GSE Worldwide have announced Spikes Under the Lights, a...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
07/05/2026
Strategic three-year partnership marks delivery phase of BFBS' next-generation media vision
Media organisation and military charity BFBS (British Forces Br...
07/05/2026
Amagi, the agentic industry cloud platform for unified broadcast, streaming, and monetization, today announced the availability of its In-Content Ads offering v...
07/05/2026
Lightware Visual Engineering has developed Rack Taurus for rack-based environments such as education and corporate training spaces. It enables clean and simple ...
07/05/2026
Jigsaw24, the UK's leading media equipment supplier and systems integrator, will showcase its expanded end-to-end workflow capabilities at MPTS 2026, signal...
07/05/2026
Ease Live, an Evertz company, today announced that it has been granted a US Patent for its proprietary graphical overlay technology, the foundation for interact...
07/05/2026
Test & measurement innovator Leader Electronics of Europe will present an extensive range of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement solutions at...
07/05/2026
At Broadcast Asia 2026 (Stand 5H3 8), LiveU is redefining live production with its most powerful IP-video EcoSystem to date built to help broadcasters and con...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Recreating the 1974 Doctor Who Time Tunnel in After Effects
Graham Quince May 6, 2026
0 Comments
The Time Tunnel from Doctor Who titles is one of th...
07/05/2026
Back to All News
Red Chillies Entertainment and Netflix Present the Trailer of ...
07/05/2026
Less typing, more tanking.
Faster logins mean more time in the gaming action - and this week provides GeForce NOW members with a smoother path straight into th...
06/05/2026
Gravity Media Chief RF Communications Engineer Glenn Willems uses Wisycom RF over Fiber and wireless solutions across major cycling events and international mar...
06/05/2026
A Sennheiser Spectera module is now available in Bitfocus Companion and Buttons, enabling direct integration of Spectera with the two software platforms. The mo...
06/05/2026
Ted Turner, the visionary media entrepreneur whose appetite for disruption helpe...
06/05/2026
The streamer aims to provide a fully integrated Spanish language experience with...
06/05/2026
Polands Miecznik-class frigates are part of the largest contract in Polish shipbuilding history. (Image Credit: PGZ Stocznia Wojenna)...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Riedel Communications today announced the expansion of its leadership structure as part of a strategic initiative to strengthen both its operational management ...
06/05/2026
For nearly three decades, Veteran Production Sound Mixer and Five-time Emmy Award Winner Dirk Sciarrotta has helped define the sonic identity of the long-runnin...
Ratings Roundup: ESPN Sees 22% Increases on WNBA Coverage; Aaron Judge's Hunt for 61 Home Runs Fuels Viewership on YES Network By SVG Staff 
