{"id":900673,"date":"2026-09-22T00:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T00:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/900673\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T00:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T00:16:10","slug":"mlb-wild-card-push-keeps-local-audience-growing-even-with-footballs-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/900673\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Wild Card push keeps local audience growing \u2014 even with football\u2019s start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">MLB heads into the final week of the regular season with a number of Wild Card scenarios still alive \u2014 particularly on the AL side \u2014 and those races have paid off for teams over the last month in terms of local TV audience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">Among the AL teams that have legitimately had a shot at an AL Wild Card over the last month, local game viewership has jumped 11%, while those chasing a spot in the NL have seen a collective 12% increase. Those gains come even as football season has gotten underway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">Even with a comfortable lead in the AL Wild Card, the Yankees have led all teams with a 32% uptick from August to September on YES Network. Helping fuel that was the Sept. 11-13 series against the Mets, which marked the best Subway Series in four years and a 58% increase over the 2025 series with the Mets. The first game in this year\u2019s series (around a half-million viewers) was the best figure for a prime-time program on a N.Y.-based RSN since Oct. 4, 2022, when Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">Despite a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/07\/17\/rangers-streaming-move-to-bzzr-draws-backlash-due-to-lack-of-availability\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">mess around their streaming of games<\/a>, the Rangers are up 23% in pursuit of not only a Wild Card spot but the AL West title. And while the Twins have slipped in the standings, the team has jumped 15% this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">\u201cThe American League is really the story, here because you have the dynamic of one division that\u2019s clearly better than the others,\u201d said Matthew Versichelli, Playfly\u2019s manager\/insights and strategy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">Over on the NL side, the Pirates have dropped off from contention, but that hope given to Pittsburgh fans paid off, as SportsNet Pittsburgh was up 23% over August to lead all teams in the Wild Card race. The Cubs and Phillies are also seeing a 17% jump, with NBC Sports Philadelphia getting a big boost from a four-game Braves series to start the month (the Phillies also easily lead all MLB teams in local audience).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">\u201cIt speaks as much to Pittsburgh as a city buying and loving sports and craving success as much as it is the Pirates specifically,\u201d said Gregg Liebman, Playfly\u2019s head of insights. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">Having run away with the team\u2019s 13th NL West title in 14 years, the Dodgers are up 20% this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">The White Sox are neck and neck with the Guardians, but games on Chicago Sports Network are down 12% this month. The South Siders had big numbers for the Crosstown Series with the Cubs in August, which was a big factor in the decline. The Astros also have a small lead on the Rangers and are down 1% on Space City Home Network.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-media \">The Red Sox are down in September, but they are still 41% above the first half of the season. Also, August included high-profile series on NESN against the Dodgers and Yankees. September for the Red Sox has also featured a higher concentration of day games (almost 46%, compared with 29% in August).<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MLB heads into the final week of the regular season with a number of Wild Card scenarios still&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-900673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}