ESPN Ends Its Wild-Card Coverage With Historic TV Ratings

ESPN is exiting the Major League Baseball postseason television business on a historic high. 

The network said Monday that last week’s wild-card round averaged 4.6 million viewers across the 11 games, up 64% from a year ago and by far the highest such mark in the four-year history of this format. In particular, the Game 3 matchup on Oct. 2 between the Red Sox and Yankees averaged 7.4 million viewers and peaked at 8.4 million, representing the network’s most-watched MLB game since 2021.

That Boston–New York matchup was the primetime finale of a dramatic, three-game set of deciding games played across the league that day, all of which were broadcast on ESPN or sister Disney channel ABC. 

Perhaps more meaningfully, the wild-card round in full saw an 89% increase in viewers ages 35 and under, and a 108% bump among those ages 17 and younger. 

ESPN has an agreement in principle to rework its MLB rights deal considerably, giving up the wild-card inventory beginning next year and focusing more on local rights and the MLB.TV out-of-market package. NBC will air the wild-card round, a key part of its high-profile return to the sport. 

Before the season started, however, ESPN executives had been dismissive of the wild-card round and how 10 of the 12 series played between 2022 and 2024 ended in sweeps. The elevated ratings won’t change the emerging contracts for the next three seasons. They do, however, provide a dramatic finale for ESPN after regular-season coverage rose 21% in 2025.

In the meantime, ESPN will be providing radio coverage of the ongoing MLB division series, and it will continue to do so through the duration of the postseason.