Phillies Opening Day draws huge ratings, big crowd
By John Town
To little surprise, the Phillies drew a huge crowd on Opening Day and smashed last year’s TV ratings for Opening Day, a sign of things to come.
To say this year’s Opening Day was the most exciting for Phillies fans in years is an understatement. After a grueling but extremely productive offseason landed the team their golden goose and other big upgrades, fan engagement is the highest since the club’s run of division championships at the turn of the decade.
Therefore, it was no surprise that fans showed up in droves to the first game of the season. The club got a sold-out crowd of 44,469, just 17 fans short of last year’s home opener. The crowd was electric with (almost) everyone welcoming Bryce Harper with open arms.
A key difference between this year and last is that attendance should remain high throughout the season. The team sold 100,000 tickets when the Harper signing was reported and demand on the resale market has risen considerably compared to last year.
More from Phillies News
- Bryce Harper’s absence should lead to Phillies lineup tinkering
- Pirates’ bizarre Vince Velasquez hype video will make Phillies fans laugh
- Acquiring Brandon Marsh gave the Phillies flexibility
- Former Phillies starter Zach Eflin shares heartwarming goodbye message
- Is Rhys Hoskins the future at first base for the Phillies beyond 2023?
Perhaps an even bigger development was the jump in TV ratings for the club. Over 284,000 households in the area tuned into the game, good for a 10.1 rating on NBC10. The channel also drew a 27 share, meaning about one in four people in each household watched the game. This doubled last year’s ratings for Opening Day and the club should see higher ratings throughout the season.
In addition, NBC Sports Philadelphia got record ratings for streaming the game. 37,000 unique viewers watched the game using their streaming service with two million minutes watched according to the network. Both those numbers also doubled last year’s marks. That doesn’t even factor in who streamed the game through other avenues like ESPN+ or MLB.tv.
Next. Phillies offseason follows championship trend. dark
The high ratings should not be too surprising considering Harper’s spring training debut set records. Those ratings pale in comparison to what the team got on Opening Day, but it still showed that fans are excited about this team.