Nationals vs. Yankees generates largest audience ever for an Opening Night game

Who said baseball is no longer America's pastime?

While history has been made quite often recently as the MLB has finally powered through hurdles to start the 2020 season amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the Washington Nationals' Opening Night game against the New York Yankees has officially gone down in the record books.

Friday evening, ESPN put out a press release detailing the viewership numbers surrounding the Opening Night matchup and they were incredible.

"Coverage of last night's New York Yankees vs. the defending World Series Champion Washington Nationals game generated a record average audience of 4,000,000 viewers for a Major League Baseball Opening Night game telecast, according to Fast Nationals from Nielsen," the release said.

"The telecast is the most-watched regular season MLB game on any network since 2011."

The Nationals fell to the Yankees, 4-1 Thursday evening - Max Scherzer was the loser, Gerrit Cole the winner.

"ESPN's record audience for the Yankees vs. Nationals game was up eight percent from the previous Opening Night record set by ESPN's St. Louis Cardinals vs. Chicago Cubs game on Opening Night in 2017, which drew 3,700,000 viewers," the release said.

"Additionally, the second half of ESPN's exclusive Opening Night telecast presented by John Deere doubleheader at 10 p.m. ET – the San Francisco Giants vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers – generated an average audience of 2,764,000 viewers and is ESPN's most-watched MLB regular season late night ET game ever. The telecast drew a 6.9 rating in the San Francisco market, making it the highest-rated regular season MLB game in the market since 2013."

The Nationals are back in action Saturday against the Yankees at 7:15 p.m.

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