Major League Baseball's national broadcasts are experiencing a notable viewership dip due to direct scheduling competition from the 2026 FIFA World Cup. But the local regional broadcasts continue to shine, and are even reaching multi-year highs.

The YES Network, which carries Yankees games, recently shared some numbers through a post on X. Despite the city being entirely consumed by the Knicks' championship, the Yankees' games are averaging 294,000 viewers across YES and the Gotham Sports app so far this season. It is their best local mark since 2022.

Even more impressive, viewership among the key group of adults aged 25 to 54 is up 16 percent compared to the same time last year. The fans actually watched 2.7 billion minutes of the Yankees game combined on YES Network and the Gotham Sports app, up by 7% from the last season.

This is the good news for baseball.  The national picture, however, is much rougher right now. 

Manny Soloway of the Awful Announcing noted, "Nationally last week, Sunday Night Baseball between the Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox averaged 1.61 million viewers. That does not include additional Peacock viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics. That is the smallest Nielsen-only audience for NBC this season."

The previous low mark, he added, was a Padres-Mariners game earlier this May, which drew 1.80 million Nielsen-only viewers and 2.0 million viewers with Adobe Analytics.

On 14 June, 2026, Sunday, ABC aired a game between the Chicago Cubs and the San Francisco Giants. Only 1.41 million people watched. Since ABC started showing a few regular-season games again in 2020, that was the least-watched one yet, perAwful Announcing.

Soloway added, Fox Sports even made a tougher choice on Saturday. The network had scheduled a regional Saturday night broadcast with the Phillies facing the Brewers and the Astros vs. the Royals.

But when the World Cup group stage schedule came out, Fox decided to shift the Phillies-Brewers game from the main Fox channel to FS1, so they could air two World Cup matches on Fox. The FS1 broadcast of that game drew only 420,000 viewers despite co-existing with local broadcasts in both home markets.

Though a full comparison for FS1 numbers is unavailable, this pretty much explains the dip in national viewership in the league.

Major League Baseball's Pre-World Cup Viewership Surge

Before the NBA Finals and the World Cup kicked off, Major League Baseball was enjoying its best national viewership in nearly a decade.

As per Yahoo Sports, through early May 2026, nationally televised games on ESPN, Fox, NBC, and Netflix averaged 2.28 million viewers. That was a massive 44 percent jump over the same point in the previous season.

It was the strongest start for national baseball broadcasts since 2017. Both NBC and Netflix set records for their Opening Day broadcasts. Fox's Saturday coverage was up as much as 40 percent.

The surge was not just on TV. Through the same stretch, average attendance across Major League Baseball rose about 3 percent, reaching 28,141 fans per game. The Toronto Blue Jays have seen an increase of more than 12,000 additional fans per home game, pushing their average attendance past 40,000.

But now, as the 2026 FIFA World Cup snatched all the spotlight, everything falls apart.

Join the Conversation! Are you a die-hard fan keeping the local ratings shining? Or are you still preferring national broadcasting?

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Written by

Md Saife Fida

Edited by

Kaamna Dwivedi