Astros-Yankees Strike Wild Card Ratings Record

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Tuesday night’s Houston Astros-New York Yankees American League Wild Card baseball telecast on ESPN drew a record 7.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen Fast Nationals.

The game, in which the Astros defeated the Yankees 3-0, was the most watched Wild Card game ever, besting the 5.5 million viewers generated by ESPN’s 2014 San Francisco-Pittsburgh Pirates National League Wild Card contest.

Last night’s telecast was up 46% over last year’s Kansas City Royals-Oakland A's AL Wild Card telecast, which drew 5.2 million viewers, according to ESPN.

The Astros-Yankees game also generated the largest audience for an MLB game ever on WatchESPN, setting records across metrics, including 445,000 unique viewers, an average minute audience of 127,000 viewers, and 25.7 million total minutes viewed across devices, said the network.

R. Thomas Umstead
R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.