As the Boston Red Sox continue to pile up victories on the field, so too do they and NESN keep racking up strong ratings on the air.
Wednesday’s 4-2 win over the Texas Rangers on NESN garnered an 8.7 household rating in the Boston designated market area. That’s second only to the April 10 game against the New York Yankees, which attracted a 9.1 household rating in Boston.
What’s more, while the 8.7 is an average quarter-hour rating throughout the entire game, the total number of people (unduplicated reach) who watched Wednesday’s game on NESN in Boston was an estimated 587,000. The total number of viewers across all nine New England DMAs who saw Chris Sale’s seven-inning, 12-strikeout performance was an estimated 993,000.
(Keep in mind that these figures do not include out-of-home viewership in bars, restaurants, etc., which Nielsen does not include in overnight ratings for regional sports channels.)
And TV isn’t the only place Red Sox fans are watching, either. Another 14,000 fans streamed Wednesday’s game live on NESNgo.com and the NESNgo app.
“Baseball has about 70 million fans that come to its games every year, and when you add up the other sports, that’s more than all the other major sports combined,” Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy said Wednesday on “Red Sox Gameday LIVE.” “Here in Boston, we live in the best sports town in America, if you add up the Celtics, Bruins, Patriots attendance, it pales in comparison to the fact that the Red Sox are drawing 2.8, 2.9 million fans.”
Through 87 telecasts to date, NESN’s Red Sox broadcasts have garnered a 6.23 average household rating, up 20 percent from the same point in 2017. Also in Boston, ratings among adults aged 25 to 54 are up 36 percent to 2.53 — its highest since 2012. Since the beginning of the MLB season, NESN’s year-to-date average household rating in primetime on NESN game nights is 63 percent higher than the second-best network in the Boston DMA, and 92 percent higher than the second-best network among 25- to 54-year-olds.
Hear Kennedy’s full interview on this season’s Red Sox viewership in the video above.
