All-Star Game a ratings hit for Peacock
Contest earns 13.3 rating, 25 share
It was a case of lucky 13s for baseball and NBC. The game -- won 13-8 by the American League stars -- earned a 13.3 rating, 25 share, up 13% over last year's 11.8/21 on Fox.
Compared with NBC's last All-Star telecast in 1996 (13.2/23), the increase was a modest 1%, but those gains were bigger and particularly heartening in some of the key demos of greatest interest to baseball management, such as men 18-34 (up 10%), men 18-49 (up 8%), teens 12-17 (up 42%) and kids 2-11 (up 27%). Women demos were generally flat or down.
The game's improving numbers suggest baseball may be bouncing back after some rough years of dwindling popularity, due largely to the 1994 players strike. Before '94, no primetime All-Star telecast had ever slipped below a 14.9 rating, but since the strike the high has been 1995's 13.9.
No recent All-Star telecast approaches the record 28.5/54 set in 1970.
This year's telecast earned a 6.9/22 in the key adults 18-49 demographic, well ahead of the 4.8/14 for football's fading Pro Bowl last February but still a bit behind the 7.4/19 for basketball's NBA All-Star Game, also a February event.
Baseball can claim the broadest-appeal All-Star event, with its 13.3 household rating easily topping hoops' 10.6 and foot-ball's 7.9.
The top counter-programming to Tuesday's baseball telecast was ABC's regular lineup (7.3/13). Fox struck out with the made-for-video pic ''Darkman 2: The Return of Durant'' (2.8/5), which barely beat UPN (2.1/4) and WB (2.0/4) and fell to Fox's worst Tuesday rating ever.
Also Tuesday, the Spanish-language broadcast network Univision scored big sports numbers in Hispanic homes with that afternoon's Brazil-Netherlands World Cup match. Despite a 2:30 p.m. Eastern time start, the soccer telecast scored a 17.3/39 in the country's 7.74 million Hispanic households.
