MLB's Viewership Booms as it Rewrites its Media Playbook

Major League Baseball's 2025 season was a ratings grand slam, with viewership soaring across its national TV partners just as the league prepares for a major media rights shakeup involving ESPN, NBC, and Netflix.

• By the numbers: The league reported double-digit viewership increases for its broadcast partners. ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball" jumped 21% in its final year, Fox's games climbed 9% to over 2 million viewers, and digital consumption on MLB.TV surged 34% to a record of nearly 20 billion minutes watched.
• Faster games, bigger stars: MLB credits its success to rule changes like the pitch clock, which has kept the average game time under 2 hours and 40 minutes for three straight years. That faster pace, combined with on-field star power, also helped boost in-person attendance to over 71 million, marking the third straight year of growth.
• A new media lineup: The ratings success provides a strong tailwind as MLB enters a new media era. According to Commissioner Rob Manfred, the league is repositioning itself by moving "Sunday Night Baseball" to NBC and bringing Netflix into the fold with the Home Run Derby, which he called "another good development for us."

MLB's strategy of improving its on-field product is paying off at the perfect time, giving it powerful leverage and new streaming partners as it navigates the decline of traditional cable.

While national ratings soared, the story was just as strong for local broadcasts on FanDuel Sports Network, which saw an 18% audience jump in its first season after emerging from bankruptcy. And for a closer look at the on-field product driving the excitement, you can see how all 30 teams stacked up in the final 2025 offensive rankings.