Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game concluded with the American League pulling away with the victory 3-2. Although Clayton Kershaw was pitching in his own home stadium, it failed to attract the number of viewers when compared to previous years.
According to FOX (via Sports Media Watch), the broadcaster of the event, the game between the two leagues drew in only 7.507 million viewers, which is a 10% decline from the 2021 viewership of the game -- marking the first time viewership has slipped below the eight million mark.
When looking at the two previous years, the 2021 All-Star game in Denver averaged a 4.5 rating and 8.32 million viewers on Fox, which was down 7% in ratings and 10% in viewership from ’20.
Despite that, the MLB's All-Star offering continues to outdraw the NFL Pro Bowl (6.69 million) and the NBA All-Star Game (6.28 million). Monday's Home Run Derby that saw Juan Soto get crowned as champion alone brought in 6.88 million viewers according to Sports Media Watch.
Although the MLB's All-Star product continues to outdraw the other major professional sports leagues', viewership has been down ever since the early to mid-90s, slowly declining ever since the turn of the century.
This may just be a case of fans not being interested in watching a glorified exhibition game or it also may be an effect of more and more Americans cutting the cord and refusing to pay for cable or streaming services outside of Netflix, Hulu, amongst others.
It will certainly be interesting to see what the numbers will look like next year.
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