The kids beat the grown-ups at their own game, again. At least on TV.
Run-scoring juggernaut Hawaii’s 13-3 mercy-rule victory in four innings over Curaçao on Sunday to win the state’s fourth Little League World Series championship averaged 2.49 million viewers for the mid-afternoon broadcast on ABC.
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While that’s a decline from last year’s 2.77 million for Michigan beating Ohio (international teams returned this season), Sunday’s title game bested Fox’s Saturday primetime national MLB broadcast (Braves-Cardinals and Giants-Twins) that averaged 1.94 million viewers. It also beat ESPN’s 1.83 million for Sunday night’s Braves-Cardinals national telecast.
Congratulations to Hawai'i for cruising to their fourth Little League World Series title! I'm so proud of this team. 🤙🏾 https://t.co/l37BTGjW5G
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 29, 2022
Little League’s U.S. final on Saturday averaged 2.41 million on ABC for Hawaii — which out-scored opponents 60-5 in six games — beating Tennessee 5-1 to advance to Sunday.
Yes, it’s an apples-oranges comparison of a one-off event versus MLB’s regular-season grind, but it’s still a nice feel-good story that the 10-to-12-year-olds living the dream at Howard J. Lamade Stadium in Williamsport, Pa., got more eyeballs for their biggest games than the major-leaguers.
MLB’s best national regular-season audience this year was 3.1 million on Fox for the “Field of Dreams” game in the famous movie’s Iowa cornfield location on Aug. 11. That was between a couple of moribund teams in the Cubs and Reds.
The MLB All-Star Game in July averaged 7.5 million viewers on Fox, a record low for the event. And baseball’s Little League Classic — an MLB game played in Williamsport, primarily in front of Little League World Series players and their families — between the Red Sox and Orioles averaged 1.18 million viewers on ESPN on Aug. 21.
This year was the Little League World Series tournament’s 75th anniversary. Other than the two finals over the weekend on ABC, the tournament aired on ESPN and ESPN2 once it began on Aug. 17. The entire tournament was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic. Last year’s tourney had limited fans in the stands, while this year was fully open.
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The viewership average for the 38-game tournament wasn’t immediately available. ABC, which Disney owns alongside ESPN, has aired Little League title games since the early 1960s (the tourney dates to 1947), and ESPN since 1987. The network reportedly paid Little League about $10 million annually for TV rights through this season under a 2013 contract, and an extension signed in 2020 runs from 2023-30 with financial terms undisclosed.
Little League World Series on TV
| Year | Teams | Viewership |
|---|---|---|
2022 | Hawaii-Curacao | 2.49 million |
2021 | Ohio-Michigan | 2.77 million |
2020 | No tournament (COVID-19) | |
2019 | Louisiana-Curacao | 3.02 million |
2018 | Hawaii-South Korea | 3.25 million |
2017 | Japan-Texas | 2.61 million |
2016 | New York-South Korea | 2.56 million |
Earlier in August, the Little League Softball World Series (for girls aged 10-12) averaged 294,000 viewers on ESPN and ESPN2, per ESPN. An Aug. 14 semifinal between Texas and Virginia averaged 537,000 viewers, the best audience for the tournament in four years. The championship game, won 5-4 by Texas over Maryland in the host city of Greenville, N.C., averaged 280,000 viewers at noon Aug. 15.
ESPN said the softball tournament enjoyed “double-digit year over year viewership gains in key demos, including a 74 percent increase among teenagers and a 30 percent year increase among women.”
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Northwestern’s 31-28 victory over Nebraska in Ireland’s Aer Lingus College Football Classic on Saturday averaged 4.41 million viewers on Fox. That’s a great number, especially considering the Big Ten West wasn’t sending its best — both teams were 3-9 last season and not expected to shock the world, Ireland, or America in 2022.
It was the seventh U.S. college football game in Ireland since the event began in 1988. It kicked off at 12:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. Dublin time), rather than early-morning U.S. kickoff times that some of the past games in the event have had.
More than 42,000 fans attended at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, including a reported estimate of 16,000 Americans. The game wasn’t airing on Irish television, per the Irish Times national newspaper.
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This was the first game in Ireland since 2016, when Georgia Tech beat Boston College, 17-14. Those teams also were coming off 3-9 seasons. Sorry, Eire. That game averaged 682,000 viewers on ESPN2 for a 7:30 a.m. kickoff.
Notre Dame had been scheduled to play Navy in Ireland in August 2020 but that was initially rescheduled for the Naval Academy in Annapolis because of COVID-19 before eventually being scrapped. The Fighting Irish and Midshipmen are scheduled to play in Ireland in August 2023.
In other notable Week Zero college football action, HBCU schools Howard and Alabama State averaged 485,000 on ESPN Saturday night for their meeting in the 2022 Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge Kickoff at Center Parc Stadium in Atlanta. That’s a significant decline from last year’s 1 million for North Carolina Central-Alcorn State meeting in the game.
TENNIS: The TV numbers aren’t in yet, but it’ll be interesting to see if Serena Williams’ final U.S. Open before retirement gives ESPN any viewership boost for its coverage from the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. Williams, 40, has 23 career Grand Slam singles titles to cement her GOAT status. She beat Danka Kovinic 6-3, 6-3 in the opening round on Monday (followed by a moving retirement tribute that included a video narrated by Oprah Winfrey) and is scheduled to play second-seeded Anett Kontaveit of Estonia on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The U.S. Open wraps up on Sept. 11.
COMING UP: We’ll take a look at WNBA playoff viewership, and dive more into the NFL audiences that will dominate television for the next six months.
All viewership data is from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, and other metrics via the TV networks, Nielsen, Sports Media Watch, ShowBuzz Daily and the leagues. All times Eastern unless otherwise noted.
(Photo: Evan Habeeb / USA Today)
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