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Red Sox-Yankees attracts largest Game 1 Wild Card or Division Series TV audience in 20 years

NBC experienced a strong opening day for its newly acquired Major League Baseball postseason coverage, highlighted by massive viewership numbers for the initial matchups. The Tuesday evening clash between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees brought in 7.3 million viewers across the network and its streaming platform Peacock.

That figure represented the highest audience for the opening game of any playoff series in the Wild Card or Division round since 2006, as well as a 12 percent jump compared to the equivalent ESPN broadcast from the previous autumn. A high point of 8.5 million viewers tuned in during the nine o'clock hour.

Earlier in the day, the opening game of the series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Atlanta Braves generated 3.9 million viewers across the same platforms. This afternoon contest set a modern benchmark for the opening round format established in 2020, representing a 15 percent increase over the prior year's comparative broadcast on ABC.

That afternoon fixture peaked at 5.0 million viewers during the four-thirty quarter-hour, getting the network off to a successful start in the first year of its new media agreement.

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