• by Wayne Friedman , October 2, 2023

With the regular season now complete, Major League Baseball on national TV networks has seen TV advertising revenue rise 6% among seven linear TV networks to $413.4 million since April 1, according to EDO Ad EnGage.

The top-performing network is Fox Television Network, $260 million -- up from $228.4 million a year ago -- followed by TBS at $89.7 million ($116.6 million in 2022); ESPN, $34.2 million ($30.6 million); Fox Sports 1, $27.0 million ($18.9 million).

MLB Network came in at $2.5 million ($1.2 million), followed by Fox Deportes with $1.3 million ($1.1 million) and ESPN Deportes at $441,900 ($390,240).

This year Fox Television Network has been carrying 16 regionalized Saturday games in prime time. A year ago it had 17 prime-time Saturday games.

The biggest advertisers this  year on Fox are Geico with $21.8 million, followed by Hyundai at $21 million; Jersey Mike's at $19.6 million and Subway with $13.4 million.

On TBS the leader is Geico with $12.1 million, followed by Progressive Insurance with $11.0 million, DirecTV at $7.8 million, DraftKings, $6.4 million and Capital One at $6.3 million.

This comes as Major League Baseball claims in-stadium attendance is up 10% to 70.7 million so far this season-- that is the biggest gain in attendance (not including COVID-disrupted years) since 1993.

An average of 29,295 attended each game this season -- up 9% from a year ago. Seventeen of 28 teams totaled attendance of more than 2.5 million this year

Major League Baseball says MLB.com has also seen total streaming viewing minutes rise 9% to 12.7 billion.Total linear TV impressions, according to EDO Ad EnGage, totaled 14.7 billion since the start of the season.