• by Masha Geller , July 15, 2003

Leading up to the 74th Major League All-Star Game airing tonight, Nielsen//NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research, and Nielsen Monitor-Plus decided to take a look at stats from both television and Internet ratings, as well as historical ad expenditure data for the game. Here's what they came up with.

Fans worldwide have been able to vote online at MLB.com since May 1, 2003 for their favorite players for this year's midsummer night classic. Below are some figures for the game showing the television ratings for the game, advertising expenditure spent and the television ratings for the game and Internet traffic to Major League Baseball's site.

This year the All-Star game will be played at US Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox, with FOX providing coverage for a third straight year. Last year's game drew more than 14.6 million viewers in the U.S. and 537,000 viewers in Canada.

The total amount of advertising spent in 2002 for the All-Star game was more than $25.7 million. The average cost of a 30 second advertisement was $325,000 in 2002 down from the $350,000 cost the previous three years. The top advertiser in 2003 was the Coors Brewing Company spending more $1.7 million in advertising. In 2001, the top advertiser was Southwest Airlines spending more than $1.4 million and in 2000 it was Chevrolet Motor Division spending more than $2.1 million in advertising.

Nielsen//NetRatings shows traffic to MLB.com, the official website for Major League Baseball, jumped 31 percent during the week ending July 6, at home and at work. The site's audience peaked at more than 2.8 million unique visitors during this last full week of online voting for the 74th annual MLB All-Star Game.

Online voting for the All-Star Game has been available to fans on the Web for the past three years, with MLB.com attracting a larger audience each season. In 2001 traffic to MLB.com peaked in June with 4.8 million unique visitors at home and at work, while the site attracted 22 percent more surfers to 5.9 million in July 2002. MLB.com has teamed up in 2003 with ESPN.com for the All-Star Game voting season and is on pace to surpass last year's total peak audience size.