MLB All-Star Game And Extras Take Top 6 Sports Spots for the Week
The first nine innings of the MLB All-Star Game topped the sports shows for the week of July 14-20 with an average viewership of 14.54 million viewers. The extra innings for the game were classified as a separate show, and that was #2 for the week with 11.6 million viewers.
Take into account the pre- and post- game shows, along with the Home Run Derby the night before, and the top 6 shows were all about the mid-summer festivities at Yankee Stadium.
My guess was that no matter what Greg Norman did, the Saturday-Sunday viewership for the British Open Golf championship would finish below 4 million average viewers, putting it below recent years (which often included Tiger Woods). Based on the individual viewerships of the two telecasts (Sunday at 4.64 million and Saturday at 3.387 million), it looks like I was too pessimistic, and the final number should be just over 4 million which would be comparable to the 2007 British Open.
Top Sports Shows for the Week of July 14-20, 2008:
| Rank | Programs | Network | Persons Live+SD (000) | HH Rating Live+SD |
| 1 | MLB ALL-STAR GAME 7/15 | FOX | 14,540 | 9.3 |
| 2 | MLB ASG EXTRA INNINGS 7/15 | FOX | 11,596 | 7.5 |
| 3 | MLB ALL-STAR PRE 7/15 | FOX | 10,371 | 6.8 |
| 4 | HOME RUN DERBY PRELUDE | ESPN | 9,116 | 5.5 |
| 5 | HOME RUN DERBY | ESPN | 6,030 | 3.8 |
| 6 | MLB ALL-STAR POST 7/15 | FOX | 5,372 | 3.7 |
| 7 | WWE RAW | USA | 4,789 | 2.8 |
| 8 | WWE RAW | USA | 4,715 | 2.6 |
| 9 | BRITISH OPEN CHAMP FINAL-7/20 | ABC | 4,640 | 3.3 |
| 10 | FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN | CW | 4,339 | 2.4 |
| 11 | BRITISH OPEN CHAMP-7/19 | ABC | 3,387 | 2.4 |
| 12 | LEGENDS CELEBRITY SOFTBALL | ESPN | 3,303 | 2.2 |
| 13 | MLB RED CARPET-7/15 | FOX | 3,250 | 2.2 |
| 14 | FOX SATURDAY BASEBALL | FOX | 3,072 | 2.2 |
| 15 | HONDA INDYCAR 200-07/20 | ABC | 1,827 | 1.3 |
| 16 | SPORTSCENTER-OPEN-7/20 | ABC | 1,279 | 0.9 |
| 17 | NBC ACTION SPORTS TOUR-SU | NBC | 1,180 | 0.8 |
| 18 | US GRAND PRIX | CBS | 1,174 | 0.9 |
| 19 | AVP VOLLEYBALL 7/20-B | NBC | 1,114 | 0.8 |
| 20 | SPORTSCENTER-OPEN-7/17 | ABC | 800 | 0.7 |
As usual the faux wrestling shows of WWE Raw were #7 and #8 with 4.8 and 4.7 million viewers respectively. Their broadcast relative, Friday Night Smackdown came in at #10 with 4.3 million viewers.
Our Sports Ratings combine the top Broadcast sports shows and any cable sports shows that appeared in the top 40 cable programs. It is possible that a cable sports show that had enough viewers to make this list is left off because it didn’t have enough viewers to make the list of the top 40 cable programs for the week which is all we have access to.
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
So Formula 1 didn't make the top 20? Any idea what rating it got?
Q, this is a compilation of the top sports shows on the broadcast networks and any sports show among the top 40 cable shows. If it aired on broadcast network TV itt certainly wasn't in the top 20 but if it aired on cable, it's very possible that it performed better than say shows 15-20 in this list, but wasn't in the data available to us. <br><br>I couldn't find any ratings for it anywhere, so no idea, sorry.
If you guys include ratings for a fake sport such as WWE RAW or even consider that as sport, there's some thing wrong with America.