Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees defeated Juan Soto and the New York Mets in the rubber match of the first half of the Subway Series on Sunday night, and ESPN was there documenting the action and disseminating it to viewers around the country.
The prime time broadcast of Sunday Night Baseball featuring play-by-play announcer Karl Ravech, analysts Eduardo Pérez and David Cone and reporter Buster Olney is said to have attained record viewership numbers. Olney revealed on social media that the game averaged 2.54 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, representing the most-watched broadcast for the Sunday Night Baseball property since August 2018. The audience for the game peaked with 3.02 million viewers at 9:45 p.m. EST and was up 69% compared to last season’s viewership average for the property.
The series was punctuated by a chorus of boos raining down on Soto, who was an All-Star outfielder for the Yankees last season after being traded to the organization from the San Diego Padres. Soto departed the team after losing in the World Series to sign a reported 15-year contract worth $765 million with the Mets during the offseason.
Although Soto was supposed to be the mic’d up player for the broadcast, he pulled out shortly before the game and was replaced by Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo. The Yankees will visit the Mets at Citi Field in July for another three-game set to conclude the 2025 regular-season iteration of the Subway Series.
ESPN previously announced that an April matchup between the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers averaged 1.95 million viewers, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. At the time, it was the most-watched Major League Baseball game across all platforms for the season and was up 30% from the previous year’s season average. The 2024 regular-season slate of Sunday Night Baseball was its most-watched in five years, averaging 1.51 million viewers across 25 games. Viewership of MLB games on ESPN is up 12% from last year.
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