ESPN Expand MLB Agreement, Announce Record Q1 Figures

An multi-year extension of ESPN’s television rights agreement with Major League Baseball (MLB) was announced yesterday, March 31, which will make ESPN America the continued home of MLB games across more than 40 countries and nearly 19 million households across Europe.

The deal also extends to other ESPN networks, such as the company’s ESPN channel in the UK, which will show multiple live games each week throughout the season.

The deal will provide baseball fans with the most extensive season-long coverage of MLB to date, including more than 300 regular season games, the entire MLB Playoffs – including the Division Series’, American League and National League Championship Series’ and the World Series.

This year’s coverage of the new MLB season began yesterday with a triple header as the New York Yankees opened their campaign against the Detroit Tigers, followed by the San Diego Padres at St. Louis Cardinals and capped off with the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants visiting the rival Los Angeles Dodgers.

Michael Walters, vice president, programming, ESPN International, said: “Around the world, ESPN and Major League Baseball have worked together to bring the sport of baseball to fans for decades now, and we are delighted to continue that long-standing and successful relationship.  This agreement will allow ESPN’s networks, led by ESPN America, to bring more baseball to fans than ever before.”

Paul Archey, Senior Vice President, International Business Operations, MLB, added: “Renewing our agreement with ESPN allows baseball fans around the world to continue enjoying Major League Baseball from Opening Day through the World Series. We are looking forward to once again working with ESPN to connect with our current fan base and to continue our commitment to develop new fans of the game globally.”

ESPN will also continue to surround its live and as-live coverage of baseball with award-winning programmes, such as Baseball Tonight and This Week in Baseball as well as usage of archive games and instant classics across ESPN’s European networks.

In other news, the broadcaster enjoyed its best first quarter ever, not only averaging more viewers than any previous January-March, but posting its highest rating on record for the quarter, according to Nielsen.  In fact, ESPN set new highs for its 24-hour rating on each of the three months.

ESPN averaged a 0.9 rating in the first quarter, representing an average of 1,076,000 viewers (P2+), up 17 per cent from 2010, the previous record. ESPN averaged 854,000 households in the quarter, up 14 per cent from last year’s previous best.

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a sensation in its first year on ESPN. The title game between Auburn and Oregon is the most-watched program in cable history with an average audience of more than 27 million viewers, and the five BCS games are ESPN’s biggest five audiences (excluding NFL games) in its 31-plus-year history.

The combined 24-hour average audience for ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, ESPN Classic and ESPN Deportes was a new first-quarter record of 1,236,000 households, up 11 per cent from 2010.