With Major League Baseball’s opening day fast approaching, big league teams are looking to surpass last-season’s finish and to collect more eyeballs for their advertisers and corporate sponsors.  A look back at the stats from locally and nationally televised games from the 2008 season reveals impressive numbers and teams will hope to carry that momentum throughout the 2009 season… and perhaps the playoffs.

Regional Ratings:

Locally, Boston continued to show the power of Red Sox Nation, with a 10.1 HH AA% on NESN (New England Sports Network), the highest average local rating on a regional sports network of any MLB team.   Additionally, the national pastime continues to be as strong as ever in America’s Heartland with the St. Louis Cardinals (7.9), Minnesota Twins (7.2), Milwaukee Brewers (7.0), and Cincinnati Reds (6.8) following as the next highest rated markets.

Several teams also boasted significant increases in ratings on their regional network. Most notably, the Tampa Bay Rays, whose incredible worst-to-first turnaround contributed to an impressive 94% jump over last season’s ratings on FOX Sports Florida.  Other notable increases were the Chicago White Sox (69%), the Cincinnati Reds (39%), and Colorado Rockies (34%).

National Broadcasts

FOX’s Saturday Baseball averaged 2.9 million viewers, with a high mark coming on July 5th when 4.5 million tuned in for Yankees vs. Red Sox or Cubs vs. Cards.  ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball also owed its high point to the Yankees and Red Sox (July 27^th -4.2 million). For the year, Sunday Night Baseball continued to be a staple of primetime cable programming with an average of 2.5 million viewers.

Post-Season

A thrilling post-season was highlighted by the most-watched cable baseball game ever: the Red Sox-Rays ALCS Game 7, with 13.4 million viewers on TBS.  The Rays’ storybook run, however, came to an end at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies in a rain-soaked World Series which averaged an 8.4 HH rating and 13.6 million viewers.

The game, which aired on TBS Sunday night, drew almost 13.4 million average viewers, easily surpassing game four of last year’s Indians v. Yankees division series, which claimed second place overall with 9.2 million average viewers.

TV viewership of the ALCS games surged after the Red Sox overcame a seven-run deficit in game five to beat the Rays and stay in the series. 

Last Thursday, game five drew 7.2 million average viewers.  Game six of the series pulled in 8.9 million viewers, securing third place in Nielsen’s ranking of the all-time top MLB playoff game broadcasts on cable TV.

View Nielsen’s full ranking of MLB playoffs ratings, dating back to 1996.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Mediaweek.

The game, in which the Red Sox trailed the Rays by seven runs as late as the seventh inning, was a rollercoaster ride for both teams’ fans — as reflected in the preliminary metered market TV ratings, released by Nielsen on Friday.

At the close of the game’s first hour, one-quarter of all Boston households were watching, but that audience eroded steadily in the game’s second hour, as the Rays widened their lead over the Red Sox.

With the Red Sox down 0-7 in the top of the seventh inning, just 15.1% of local Boston households — a game low — remained.  But just 30 minutes later, when Boston scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, that percentage jumped to 22.1%, as Boston households returned to their TVs to watch the game heat up.

Household viewing in the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg, Florida market hovered between 20% and 25% for much of the game.

Overall viewing among Nielsen’s top 56 metered markets also remained steady — at 5% to 6% of all households — throughout the game.

Angels/Red Sox Match-Up Tops Division Series TV Ratings
The third game of the Los Angeles Angels v. Boston Red Sox drew the largest television audience of the division series: 6.2 million viewers.  The three other games in that contentious series also made the top ten — with average TV audiences of approximately 5.7 million (game four), 5.3 million (game two), and 4.4 million viewers (game one), respectively.

After the jump, view complete national ratings from the division series games, aired exclusively on TBS.

Manny Boosts Dodgers…TV Ratings?
What are the odds that the Los Angeles Dodgers would have made it to the MLB National League Championship Series without Manny Ramirez?  Since Manny’s move west to join the Dodgers, the team has gone from one game under .500 to seven games above. 

Local L.A. fans’ interest in the Dodgers is also on the rise.  Ramirez’s first game with the Dodgers drew 5.2% of all TV households in the L.A. market – the team’s largest TV audience of the season.  Overall, local ratings for Dodgers games are up by 35% since August 1.

Rays’ First Post-Season Triggers TV Ratings Surge
The Red Sox, Ramirez’s former team, didn’t miss a beat after losing their all-star slugger to the Dodgers.  The resurgent Tampa Bay Rays, however, may change that. 

The Rays, who are competing in their first post-season in franchise history, are drawing strong TV audiences in their local Tampa Bay market, with ratings up by 97% over last season, to date.  When the Rays and the Red Sox last faced off on July 2, 9% of all households in the Tampa Bay market tuned in for the game, setting a Rays franchise ratings record.

Historically, at least where league championship series are involved, ratings have been significantly higher when teams from major markets, such as Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, are involved. A breakdown of those matchups will be featured prior to the upcoming NL and AL championship series.

Below are historical ratings since 2000 for Division Series Playoffs. Numbers from 2007 division games broadcast on TNT and TBS are combined average viewership for both National and American leagues. The 13 games broadcast on TBS drew an average of 5.7 million viewers, while the four games picked up by TNT drew an average of 1.6 million viewers.

NATIONAL LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES

AMERICAN LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES