As much as we pick on the MLB All-Star Game for what’s wrong, we may finally be seeing something right about the exhibition game that counts for something (we can debate that until the cows come home). For the second straight year, the All-Star Game saw its viewership increase. In 2014, Fox garnered an average of 11.34 million viewers, up from 11 million even last year. And the rating for the game was 7.0 and that’s up slightly from the 6.9 it received in 2013.
So that’s an encouraging sign for Fox which has seen many articles about falling ratings and dropping viewership for the MLB All-Star Game dating back to last century.
This is the first time the ASG’s ratings have increased in consecutive years since 1993-1994, but again, the viewership and ratings were much higher 20 years ago.
Here’s the Fox/MLB joint press release about the All-Star Game’s ratings.
MLB ALL-STAR GAME PROPELS FOX TO DOMINANT PRIMETIME WIN WITH HIGHEST RATINGS AND VIEWERSHIP SINCE 2010
Jeter Farewell and Trout MVP Performance Lead Social Conversation
As Derek Jeter played in his final MLB All-Star Game and Mike Trout became the second-youngest All-Star Game MVP in history, the 85th MLB All-Star Game became the most-watched Midsummer Classic in four years while generating significant chatter on social media.
The telecast on FOX generated a 7.0 fast national rating and 11.34 million viewers, the best for the All-Star Game since 2010 by both metrics, according to Nielsen. The All-Star Game once again led FOX to a dominant win in primetime and was the highest-rated program in primetime on FOX since an early February episode of American Idol. This year also marks the first time that the rating for the All-Star Game increased in consecutive years in 20 years (1993-1994).
On social media, the telecast generated 1,413,424 total comments among 544,115 unique users according to data from Twitter, the most ever for the All-Star Game and a +66% increase in conversation over the 2013 Midsummer Classic. More than 615,000 tweets during the telecast included a reference to Jeter. The conversation peaked at more than 21,000 tweets per minute during the bottom of the first inning, when Jeter’s lead-off double was followed by an RBI triple by Mike Trout and a two-run home run by Miguel Cabrera. Additional peaks included the moment when Jeter left the game in the fourth inning (16,000 tweets per minute), and when Trout was named MVP (11,000). The MLB All-Star Game was also by far the most discussed TV program on social media on Tuesday across all dayparts and networks, according to Nielsen SocialGuide.
That is all.
