ESPN drew a 4.1 overnight rating for the Giants’ 8-0 win over the Pirates in the NL Wild Card last night, matching Orioles-Rangers from ’12 as the best overnight figure yet for any MLB WC game. That Orioles-Rangers game from ’12 aired on a Friday night. Despite the lopsided score, Giants-Pirates is up 11% from a 3.7 overnight for the Rays-Indians AL WC on a Wednesday night on TBS last year. TBS drew a 3.4 overnight for the Pirates-Reds NL WC last year on a Tuesday night. Last night’s game delivered a 22.6 local rating in Pittsburgh, setting a record in the market for any MLB game on ESPN. The same superlative was set in the S.F.-Oakland-San Jose market, which drew a 13.3 local rating for the game (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
PLEASING TO THE EARS: While TBS' broadcast of Tuesday's Royals-A's AL WC
came under heavy scrutiny on Twitter, Giants-Pirates did not suffer the same fate. Buffalo-based WGR-AM's
Matthew Coller wrote, "The difference between Dan Shulman and Ernie Johnson doing baseball is massive." The Idaho Press-Tribune's
B.J. Rains: "Love this Shulman-Kruk broadcast on ESPN. So nice to have announcers and a network that actually specialize in baseball calling it." The Wall Street Journal's
Paul Vieira: "Dan Shulman put more emotion into that Harrison foul ball play than Ernie Johnson during first 7 innings last night."
TAKING A LOCAL VIEW: In Baltimore, James Briggs writes while TBS will televise all ALDS games, that “doesn't mean MASN is abandoning the Orioles after covering most of their regular season games.” The RSN is “reviving a format it developed during the 2012 playoffs when it wrapped pregame and postgame shows around national game telecasts." MASN will “carry two hours of Orioles coverage on game days starting one hour before each game and resuming one hour after TBS concludes its in-stadium broadcast.” Tom Davis and Rick Dempsey will host the shows from MASN's studio, while Jim Hunter and Mike Bordick will “offer interviews and analysis from inside the stadium.” MASN also is “using the same format to cover” the Nationals during the playoffs (
BIZJOURNALS.com, 10/2).
