New TV Playoff Format Results in Mixed Success for Baseball

The first prime-time game of baseball’s new postseason TV format, Texas’ 6-2 victory over the New York Yankees at New York on Tuesday night, got an 8.6 rating and 15 share.

Last year, regionalized coverage of the opening night of the playoffs got a 10.1 rating and 12 share on NBC. Baseball was criticized for not televising all games nationally, so it switched back to staggered starts this year and sold afternoon games to ESPN, the first postseason baseball games on cable.

In all, 12.5 million viewers watched one of the three playoff games Tuesday, up from 9.7 million who watched the regionalized coverage last year.

ESPN’s broadcast of Baltimore’s win over Cleveland got a 2.6 cable rating, and St. Louis’ victory over San Diego got a 3.5 cable rating. The Rangers-Yankees’ game on NBC was available in 95.9 million homes, the ESPN telecasts in 69.8 million.

The rating is the percentage of television households in the nation tuned to a broadcast. The share is the percentage watching a telecast among those televisions on at the time.