Major League Baseball’s Opening Night telecast presented by Scotts, which saw the St. Louis Cardinals defeat the Chicago Cubs 3-0 at Wrigley Field, delivered a 2.1 overnight rating on ESPN2, according to Nielsen. This marks MLB’s highest-rated Opening Night in five years (since 2010) and is up 40 percent compared to Opening Night in 2014 and 2013 (1.5).
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Opening Night on ESPN2 also enjoyed significant success in local markets. In St. Louis, the telecast drew a 17.7 rating, making it the highest-rated regular-season MLB telecast on any ESPN network ever in the market. In Chicago, the game delivered a 7.6, making it the highest-rated regular-season MLB game in the market on ESPN networks in five years.
Update:
With 3,354,000 viewers watching on ESPN2, Major League Baseball’s Opening Night presented by Scotts (St. Louis Cardinals at Chicago Cubs) delivered a 47% increase from last year’s game (Los Angeles Dodgers at San Diego Padres – 1,614,000 viewers) and the biggest audience for an ESPN or ESPN2 MLB Opening Night Since 2008, according Fast National figures from Nielsen. The corresponding U.S. Household rating was a 2.0, up 43% from 2014 (1.4).
Additionally, viewership for the game represents the highest total for an ESPN or ESPN2 regular-season game since New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox on August 7, 2011.
On the digital front, the game had 163,000 unique viewers (an increase of 180% from last year) and 8.6 million minutes viewed (up 218%), which makes it the most-viewed regular-season MLB game ever on WatchESPN.
via ESPN