Summer Lovin': Fox Earns 8.9 Final Rating For All-Star Game

Tuesday night's MLB All-Star Game from Busch Stadium posted an 8.9/15 final Nielsen rating on Fox, down 4.3% from a 9.3/16 for last year's game from the old Yankee Stadium. Despite the drop in ratings, the game's 14.6 million viewers were up 0.7% from 14.5 million viewers for the first nine innings of last year’s 15-inning game. This year’s telecast is also up 6.0% and 16.8%, respectively, from an 8.4/15 rating and 12.5 million viewers in ’07, and marks the most-viewed MLB All-Star Game since '02 (14.7 million viewers). The Pepsi pregame show, which featured President Obama throwing out the first pitch and taped messages from the five living presidents, drew an 7.0/13 rating and marks the highest-rated pregame show since a 7.1/13 in ’04 ( THE DAILY ). BIG NIGHT FOR FOX : Fox won the night with the highest-rated primetime window on any net since the net’s “American Idol” finale in May. Fox saw three-year demographic highs in men 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, as well as five-year highs for adults 18-49 and 25-54. The game’s rating peaked just after 11:00pm ET at a 9.3/17 ( Fox ). The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER's Crupi & Hibberd report Fox' 14.6 million viewers for the All-Star Game make it the "sixth-most-watched sporting event" since the Super Bowl in February ( HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 7/16 ). Meanwhile, Rogers Sportsnet earned 538,000 viewers in Canada for the All-Star Game, up 37% over 391,000 viewers for the '08 game ( Rogers ). CLUTCH HIT : AWFUL ANNOUNCING's Brian Powell wrote he "honestly thought" Fox announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver "would find a way to ruin" President Obama's appearance in the booth during the All-Star Game. But Buck, McCarver and Obama "actually made it enjoyable." The discussion was "loose and light, and focused on the game of Baseball, which is a welcome change from all the Politics that have crept into Sports as of late" ( AWFULANNOUNCING.com, 7/15 ). Meanwhile, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart joked about Fox not getting all of Obama's ceremonial first-pitch on camera. Stewart: "Here is the wind up and here is the pitch and it's -- off camera. What? Where did the --? What? What happened to the ball? Nice camera work there. In Fox Sports' defense, you couldn't have anticipated in advance that a ball once thrown would be caught at some other point in space" ( "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Comedy Central, 7/15 ).