MLB sees double-digit viewership increases in U.S. and Japan
NEW YORK--Major League Baseball's viewer numbers in the United States and Japan during the first two months of the season have seen double-digit increases, MLB and Nielsen reported Tuesday.
ESPN's coverage is up 22%, averaging 1.74 million viewers. It is the most-watched season on ESPN through the first two months since 2017.
This might be the last year ESPN is carrying baseball after it opted out of its rights deal in February.
The MLB Tuesday package on TBS has a 16% increase. Fox Sports is up 10%, averaging 1.84 million viewers per game.
Last Saturday night's 18-2 rout by the Los Angeles Dodgers over the New York Yankees averaged 2.2 million on Fox.
The MLB.TV streaming package has seen its viewers increase 27%, with more than 7.5 billion minutes watched through Monday.
Games on the NHK channels in Japan are averaging 2.7 million. The average does not include the Tokyo Series games between the Dodgers and Chicago Cubs which began the regular season.
The ratings are on pace for MLB's most-watched regular season in Japan as the audience has increased every year since 2021.
On MLB.TV, streaming viewership has increased 27% vs 2024, which was the most-watched season in the history of the service. For games through Monday, June 2, MLB.TV has more than 7.5 billion minutes watched this season.
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Japan Times
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It's great, they take care of their business, but also there's a different side of guys that you might not see on a daily basis. 'Like Taira, one of the coolest guys. Kona (Takahashi, another Lions pitcher), awesome. They're just awesome guys. Ideally, we want to be able to move the podcast into having Japanese players on and having foreign players on to connect both worlds. 'So the goal is to eventually have a bunch of really good Japanese and Korean players on at some point. I don't want our American fans to be like, 'Where did this guy come from?' It's like, this dude has been raking for seven or eight years in Japan or Korea. This dude's been punching out tickets for seven or eight years. He's been there, people just don't know about them unless it's covered on MLB network.' MacKinnon cohosts Pacific Swings with Dutch journalist and baseball fan Jasper Spanjaart, who he says does most of the heavy lifting. 'He's unreal at the whole editing process and stuff,' MacKinnon said. 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MLB/ A rare first for Ohtani: Dodgers superstar strikes out in his first 4 plate appearances
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