Major League Baseball’s rule changes — highlighted by the new pitch clock — are not only helping TV ratings but also luring fans to streaming platforms.

Opening Day generated record viewership for MLB.TV, according to SportsPro. The direct-to-consumer platform drew a record 172 million minutes watched across 15 MLB games on Thursday, up 42% from 121 million last year. 

MLB.TV has added a number of fan-engagement features, including live graphics featuring betting data and statistics, plus 3-D renderings of plays during selected games.

The league’s TV partners are also reporting strong numbers from opening weekend.

• Fox Sports’ season-opening doubleheader averaged 2,212,000 viewers, a 10% increase over last year’s season for FOX Saturday baseball telecasts.
• ESPN’s Opening Weekend averaged 1,597,000 viewers, up 11% vs. last year’s full season average.
• ESPN’s Phillies-Rangers “Sunday Night Baseball” game averaged 1.5 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2 — up 4% from last season’s SNB average, per Nielsen.

ESPN2’s “KayRod Cast,” featuring the YES Network’s New York Yankees announcer Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez, added 245,000 viewers or 15.7% of the overall audience. That’s believed to be a higher percentage than Peyton and Eli Manning’s alternative telecast of “Monday Night Football.”

ESPN’s Sunday game broadcast averaged 1.3 million viewers — making it the most-watched sporting event on cable TV that night among the coveted 18-49 age demographic.  

Shorter Games

MLB’s rule changes have improved the pace of play.

The average game time was 2:45 compared to 3:11 during the first seven games of the 2022 season. The use of bigger bases and fewer pickoff attempts led to 21 stolen bases on Opening Day — the most since 1907, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The Washington Commanders and Manchester United both went on the market in November, and each was expected to surpass the current worldwide record for a sports franchise set in 2022 with the $5.4 billion purchase of Chelsea FC. 

As slow as the Commanders’ process has been, Manchester United’s potential sale has had more twists of late — including the possibility that the Glazers could end up keeping the club. 

Malcolm Glazer’s heirs, who own Manchester United and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, may decide not to sell their Premier League club since the ongoing banking crisis has kept bids lower than expected, The Guardian reported. 

The Raine Group, the firm advising the Glazers on the sale, extended the deadline for second-round bids last month.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, one of the frontrunners, faces questions regarding regulatory issues over the Qatar Islamic Bank’s UK unit that he’s run since 2006. 

U.K. officials aren’t expected to block Al Thani’s bid, but Bloomberg reported Tuesday that government ministers could pressure the Premier League to take a closer look.

Jim Ratcliffe, the richest person in Britain, is seen as the other top contender for the club. 

Commanders Sale Drags Along

It’s been a week since Front Office Sports reported that a group led by Josh Harris entered a bid of slightly less than $6 billion for the Commanders. 

Harris remains the leading contender for Washington, although sources with knowledge of the process haven’t ruled out a last-minute bid by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. 

Five years ago, the UConn Huskies had a losing record and played in different basketball conference. Now, they’re national champions for the fifth time in program history — only three D-I men’s basketball teams have more titles. 

The Huskies built their historic title run with two savvy business decisions: rejoining the Big East and hiring coach Dan Hurley. 

In 2018, the Huskies brought Hurley in after firing coach Kevin Ollie — who led the program to a national championship in 2014 but had struggled since (the department was still paying Ollie’s multimillion-dollar buyout in 2022).  

Hurley reportedly signed a six-year contract that pays about $2.9 million annually, slightly less than UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma makes. 

A year later, UConn accepted a bid to leave the American Athletic Conference and rejoin the Big East. 

In the AAC, they had struggled with an unsuccessful football team and faced high travel costs and little basketball competition for their men’s or historic women’s program. 

But when the Huskies returned to the Big East, they were able to focus on basketball — which helped with recruiting, as multiple pundits pointed out. In turn, the program’s arrival helped reinvigorate the new Big East.

Now, the conference boasts three national championships since it reformed a decade ago — and UConn enjoys its blue-blood status. 

“The Big East was the best conference in the country this year,” Hurley told reporters Tuesday night. “We were the best conference in this tournament, and I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”