ESPN’s final year with Major League Baseball’s wild-card round was a historic one.
The network announced on Monday that the wild-card round of the playoffs last week averaged 4.6 million viewers. That’s up 64% from last year’s games, and a record in the history of the three-game wild card format.
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Naturally, the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox series was the most-watched of the round. Game 3 of that series — which the Yankees won 4-0 to advance into the next round — averaged 7.4 million viewers and peaked at nearly 8.5 million. That made it ESPN’s most watched MLB game in general since 2021.
It is worth noting that only one of the four series in the wild card round was decided in just two games. The Los Angeles Dodgers swept the Cincinnati Reds to reach the NLDS for the 13th straight season. Every other series went the full three games.
ESPN and MLB agreed earlier this year to terminate their network agreement after the 2025 season, though the two sides came back together to reach a new deal in August that would allow it to carry MLB.TV and the rights to all out-of-market baseball games. ESPN is still expected to broadcast some regular season games, but NBC is reportedly set to take over the wild-card round next season. MLB is also reportedly working to have all of its broadcast rights deals expire in 2029 in order to restructure them all at once, which should lead to a big payday for the league regardless of how it structures things.
Fox and FS1 are broadcasting both of the ALDS series and will have the ALCS, while TBS has the NLDS and NLCS. Fox will then carry the World Series, which is set to start with Game 1 on Oct. 24.
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