The American League’s triumph over the National League in last night’s All-Star Game drew a 7.8 overnight rating (in the largest 56 out of 210 markets) according to Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp.
Per Karp that’s down from last year’s 7.9. We had last year at an 8.0 but that’s splitting hairs. We have the record-low at 7.9 in 2011. Karp chalks the drop from last year to a big 31 percent drop in the NYC market.
Karp correctly notes that doesn’t necessarily translate to lowest viewership ever, we’ll have to wait until this afternoon to find out. Indeed the overnight rating for Monday’s Home Run Derby was lower than it was in 2013, but Monday’s affair wound up with around half a million more viewers than the 2013 event.
Per Karp Kansas City was the top local market with a 31.4 rating and host market Cincinnati had 22.8 rating.
Update: based on Twitter trash talk, definitely worth nothing that 7.8 is still 41% better than the 5.5 overnight the NBA All-Star Game garnered in February, and 39% better than the 5.6 overnight for January’s NFL Pro Bowl.