With only bragging rights at stake, will this year's MLB All Star Game see a YOY drop in viewership?
82% of users predicted YES — the community missed this one. 33 predictions cast.
This year's MLB All-Star Game drew 8.79 million average viewers on Fox, a 21% increase over the prior year's 7.19 million, meaning the market resolved No on the question of a year-over-year viewership decline. The audience was the largest for an All-Star Game since 2018, and Nielsen recorded a peak audience of 10.19 million between 8:45 and 9 p.m. ET. The gains came even though two of the sport's biggest stars, Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, skipped the game, with Ohtani resting a knee injury.
Related programming also grew: the All-Star Game selection show drew nearly 5.9 million viewers, the most since the broadcast began in 2007, and the pregame show was up 56% from the prior year. Not every associated broadcast rose, however; the Home Run Derby, which moved to Netflix from ESPN, averaged 5.3 million viewers, down 8% from the prior year's ESPN broadcast. Analysts attributed part of the overall lift to carryover interest from the FIFA World Cup, which had recently concluded in the U.S. Community sentiment (82% Yes) heavily favored a viewership decline given the "bragging rights only" stakes of an exhibition game, making this one of the more lopsided misses among the day's resolutions.