NBC Sports Delivers Largest MLB Opening Day Audience on Record for Multi-Game Presentation

Major League Baseball delivered multiple viewership milestones in its return to NBC and Peacock with a doubleheader last Thursday, March 26, on Opening Day presented by Adobe. 

Among the highlights:

Pittsburgh Pirates-New York Mets is Most-Watched MLB Opening Day Afternoon Game on Record

The two-game presentation (Pittsburgh Pirates at New York Mets in the afternoon and Arizona Diamondbacks at Los Angeles Dodgers in primetime) delivered the largest MLB Opening Day audience on record for a multi-game presentation by a single network, averaging 2.7 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, based on official Nielsen Big Data + Panel and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

The Diamondbacks-Dodgers primetime game, which opened with the Dodgers raising their 2025 World Series banner, averaged 3.2 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, marking the most-watched Opening Day primetime game since 2017* (Cubs-Cardinals, following the Cubs’ first World Series title in 108 years).

Despite major head-to-head sports competition on Thursday night, Diamondbacks-Dodgers also delivered the most-watched MLB Thursday audience on record in the first half of the season (before the All-Star break).*

The Pirates-Mets 1 p.m. ET game averaged 2.3 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, marking the most-watched Opening Day afternoon game on record.

*excludes COVID-impacted 2020 season

St. Louis Cardinals visit Detroit Tigers this Week on Sunday Night Baseball at 7 p.m. ET on Peacock and NBCSN

Sunday Night Baseball continues this Sunday, April 5 at 7 p.m. ET on Peacock and NBCSN, as the St. Louis Cardinals visit the Detroit Tigers. Both teams won their season-opening series, taking two of three games.

NBC Sports' History with MLB

NBC Sports has a distinguished history with Major League Baseball. The first-ever MLB television broadcast was a 1939 Cincinnati Reds-Brooklyn Dodgers doubleheader on W2XBS (the precursor to WNBC-TV) in New York. NBC Sports was a home to the first World Series broadcast in 1947, the first All-Star Game nationally broadcast in 1952, and has televised 39 World Series – more than any other network. 

From 1957-2000, NBC Sports was home to a wealth of baseball programming, including Game of the Week and Monday Night Baseball telecasts, more than 30 All-Star Games, and countless iconic Postseason moments. For the 2022-23 seasons, Peacock was the exclusive home of MLB Sunday Leadoff, a first-of-its-kind Sunday morning presentation featuring a unique three-announcer broadcast booth with one analyst with expertise on each team joining the play-by-play voice.