Richard Sandomir of the New York Times reports that since SNY went on the air in 2006, Mets viewership has nearly always lagged behind the Yankees on YES.
“This is hardly a revelation: In nearly all of those seasons, the Mets performed poorly while the Yankees, with one World Series championship in 2009, were always at least pretty good.”
In 2013, Yankees viewership was double that of the Mets, and last year it was nearly double again.
But with the Mets on a 10-game winning streak and the Yankees at 8-7 entering Thursday afternoon’s games, the chasm in their television audiences has narrowed significantly.
Mets games this season on SNY are drawing an average of 253,339 viewers for each game, up 47 percent from the same time last season. At YES, Yankee viewership has tumbled 21 percent, to 267,000.
Sandomir adds that through Tuesday, the most-watched broadcast for either New York team this season was the debut of Matt Harvey, who pitched six innings on April 14 in a 6-5 win over Philadelphia.
An average of 429,161 watched that game, at least 25,000 more than watched the Yankees’ viewing peak this season, their home opener on April 6.
Look out, baby, cause here we come…
