Fox' Thursday broadcast of MLB's Field of Dreams game averaged 5.87 million viewers, ranking as the best regular-season MLB game audience on any network since '05. It also was the most-streamed regular-season baseball game yet for Fox Sports (average minute audience of 73,100 viewers). It also delivered Fox a primetime win among all networks. The top five markets for the game were Chicago, N.Y., St. Louis, Hartford and K.C. (Austin Karp, SBJ).
PRO FOOTBALL TALK notes Fox drew a much larger audience for its broadcast of the Pro Football HOF game on Aug. 5, which averaged 7.3 million for a Cowboys-Steelers contest that "ultimately means nothing." Seven days later, Fox drew 5.9 million for Yankees-White Sox in a regular-season game "played in an iconic location." That is "not a knock on baseball," but just a "statement of numbers-don’t-lie fact." When a "new high-water mark still falls 1.4 million viewers behind a football game replete with backups, it demonstrates that, when it comes to football, if you build it, a lot more people will come" (NBCSPORTS.com, 8/13).
