Heading into the last weekend of the regular season and any possible tie-breaker games on Monday, ESPN is averaging around 1.0 million viewers for its MLB game coverage. That would likely mark the lowest figure for the network in at least the last decade. ESPN averaged 1.02 million viewers in '12, but there remains a chance ESPN could finish above that mark. The net ran into some headwinds this season, including the Rio Games and heightened election coverage taking away some adult male viewers. The net’s “Sunday Night Baseball” package alone averaged 1.6 million viewers, which would mark the window’s lowest average in at least a decade. It was also the third straight year of declines for “SNB.” There is no "SNB" telecast during the last weekend of the season. While game coverage was down this year, ESPN did see a gain for its “Baseball Tonight” studio programming, which this season went to fewer shows and shows being used more on game nights and in high-interest windows. “Baseball Tonight” is averaging 275,000 viewers to date this season, up 28% from 215,000 last year. Meanwhile, WatchESPN has seen 3.62 million unique viewers for MLB game coverage this season. “SNB” itself saw double-digit percentage gains on WatchESPN among average minute impressions, unique viewers, total minutes and minutes per viewer.
