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ATLANTA — The 2025 MLB Home Run Derby came down to less than an inch at one point of Cal Raleigh’s march to victory. The event’s viewership, however, had a clearer margin of growth.
ESPN said its coverage of the Derby averaged 5.73 million viewers, spanning its primary coverage on ESPN itself and an alternate, Statcast-driven presentation on ESPN2. The figure is up 5% from the average of 5.45 million last year.
The network had a cleaner window in which to operate compared to last year, when the Derby competed for viewers with the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Even as the network is opting out of its rights deal with MLB after this season, absent a renegotiation, the network sought to pull out all the stops on its presentation. It brought in top on-air personality Pat McAfee to do a live episode of his show from The Battery and introduce the eight competitors at Truist Park. ESPN also deployed drone cameras, similar to what is used in golf coverage, to help track ball flight.
“Got a chance to do something new with a different sport,” McAfee said in a social media post. “I really enjoyed it and think it went exactly how all parties envisioned it.”
ESPN’s broadcast, however, still generated some complaints from fans. Most at issue was a split-screen presentation showing the contact batters made with pitches and where balls ultimately landed, but in some cases, it omitted the action in between.
The traditional presentation of the Derby on ESPN averaged 5.23 million viewers, while the alternate Statcast feed averaged 499,000.
Sunday’s coverage of the start of the MLB draft, meanwhile, averaged 776,000 viewers across ESPN and MLB Network, down 10% from a year ago, but still slightly above marks from 2023.
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