According to this detailed PDF file from Major League Baseball:
Some other statistics from the same PDF file (2004 statistics):
[ul]
[li]More than 250 MLB games were broadcast in Japan.[/li].
[li]Game 7 of the Yankees vs Red Sox playoff drew more than 11 million viewers in Japan.[/li].
[li]More than 2.7 million MLB viewers in Australia.[/li][/ul]
This CNN page says
Further down the same page it says that the 1st game of the WS was watched in 7.6 million Japanese homes.
Average for the ALCS (Yankees Red-Sox) was 31.5 million per game Since the ALCS went 7 games, this gives us another 220 million viewers there.
So with 101.6 million from four World Series games, 44 million Yankees viewers, and 26.4 million Cubs viewers, that brings us to 392 million viewers from those sources alone.
According to **Sublight’s ** estimate, we may have another 250 million viewers in Japan.
MLB broadcasts are popular in Latin America as well. Many games are shown in here in Panama, usually several a week, and the sports bars are packed during the World Series. Even more games are available on cable than on broadcast TV. In Latin America, baseball is most popular in Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, with a combined population of over 135 million. If viewership is only half that of Japan, that gives us another 100 million viewers - a fairly safe bet, since this represents the average adult in these countries seeing fewer than two MLB games per year (including the playoffs and World Series), and this doesn’t include any viewership in the rest of Latin America.
So these sources, by themselves, taken together bring us to 742 million viewers. Add in viewship for the NLCS, Division Series, regular season games, and from Europe and Australia, and I doubt whether the Superbowl comes close, even if their own estimates are correct.
Anyone know if all of these games (baseball & SB alike) are carried live or on delay?
As I read the Japan estimate (250 million viewers/season over 250 games), MLB regular season would have to be drawing a much higher share of the Japanese TV audience than it does in the US, even for nationally televised feature games. Not saying that’s not possible, but noting that’s pretty incredible.
Here in St. Louis, 274,476 viewers would translate to a rating of about 10-11. St. Louis is a baseball-loving town that last year had 160 out of 162 games on local or cable TV. But even in St. Louis, only a few games reach a 10 rating – opening day, any game against the Cubs, late in the season when the pennant is on the line, etc. Most of the other games are lucky to hit half that mark.
Of course, St. Louis Cardinal games aren’t just telecast locally, but across a large chunk of the Midwest. Still, it’s hard to believe those outlying (and smaller) markets can double the viewing audience. And a lot of teams that are in larger markets (Los Angeles and Houston come immediately to mind) may have lower ratings. Throw in teams like Cincinnatti, Kansas City and Milwaukee (smaller cities and less fan support) and I think it would be a real struggle to come up with an average of 275,000 viewers for every single game, even counting the big bumps when a game is nationally televised.
Well, well, it looks like I need to print this out and take it over to my best friend’s house!
Checking a few sites, it seems a Japanese rating point translates to about 1.2 million viewers. So the figure cited is only a rating of 1 per game. What is the typical rating in the US for a nationally televised feature game?
It looks like what’d be helpful here is a $450 book. Anyone have it? Anyone in the advertising biz out there have one on their desk…?
Of regular season MLB games in the US, I understand that you’re talking about ratings no higher than usually a 2.X share for the 50 or so games broadcast nationally on the regular networks (NASCAR has hit 5 & better in the same afternoon time slots), with the cable channel nationally televised games getting much, much lower than that… likely under a share of 1.
If you averaged those out I expect the Japanese ratings would come out higher. In terms of raw numbers of people and available population, though, what amazes me is that the Japanese are something like 50% of the US population & yet would apparently be getting the same number of people in front of the TV for MLB games. I assume there is some time delay involved (anyone know?) seeing how off-kilter the time zones could be; perhaps they only show West Coast games to help a bit?
If the SB & MLB numbers involve tape delay, do we count those viewers for either or not?
This article talks about the Yomiuri Giants, Japan’s most popular team, having a share of 12.2 % of viewers. They are, however, concerned that their viewership is being cut into by MLB games, which presumes that that audience is significant in comparison to their usual numbers.
Regarding Ichiro Suzuki’s recent breaking of the season record for hits, it says:
These figures suggest to me that a rating of 1 for an average MLB game in Japan might perhaps not be unreasonable.
That’s a great question. I’d say yes, but then my friend would accuse me of padding the baseball numbers. His point, I believe, was that more people are interested in football than baseball worldwide. If that is the case, then I say include the numbers because they are orginal (albeit tape delayed) broadcasts, not some Joe Schmoe watching a game he taped.
But now consider that every game has two teams, and therefore presumably appeals to two markets. So assuming that the rating scale is linear, 5s are right on target.
Well if that’s his point, then it’s just nonsense. American football is of interest mainly in the U.S., with some additional fans in Canada and Europe. Anywhere else it’s pretty marginal.
Baseball is a significant sport in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. All of those places have their own home-grown leagues (sometimes several), in addition to their interest in MLB itself. Panama’s local baseball season is in full swing now, and many local games are televised (as well as games from Mexican and other leagues). It would be legitimate to include all the televised games from the Japanese and Latin American leagues, not just those from MLB.
How many other countries have leagues for playing American Football? In how many are local games regularly televised?
Watching a one-day event like the Superbowl, even if the numbers are anywhere like they are alleged to be, doesn’t translate into serious fan interest. By that criterion figure skating would be a major sport because lots of people watch it during the Winter Olympics every four years.
I think that in the case of the home city, games being plentiful and tickets comparatively cheap, the weather of necessity being decent (or in a dome not a factor), some decent amount of the people who want to see a baseball game show up at it in person. I’d argue that you’re talking about 30-40,000 fewer TV viewers a lot of times in the home market because people are at the game; baseball is an in-person thing and draws a lot of people (Cub Scouts, dates, etc) as a day or evening out who would never be watching the same game on TV mixed in w/ actual baseball fans who would. Since I think a lot of teams would be lucky to get 100,000 TV viewers/game, I’m not so sure that we can assume home and away baseball market viewships are as parallel as other sports, especially say football.
In that case, one would expect the visiting team to draw in even more TV viewers on average than the home team, since most of that team’s fans can’t see the game in person. So that would only strengthen my point.
I was looking at it as the home team drawing “even less,” but that seems a glass half empty or full issue.
People who watch a baseball game on TV are really into the sport, but a live game for a lot of people who wouldn’t bother with baseball on TV is a day or night out, with the family, a date, the Cub Scout troop, etc.
So my guess is that in most cities (maybe not baseball meccas, of which there aren’t many left) there’s a net loss of a few thousand viewers who are real fans for the home team every home game.