Nearly seven million people tuned in to the 2013 MLB Home Run Derby on ESPN on Monday night, making the event more popular than any of the NBA Playoffs games aired on the same network according to a report on Business Insider. ESPN aired three Western Conference Finals games, as well as early-round matchups between popular teams like the Knicks and Celtics, the Lakers and Spurs, and the Bulls and Heat.
It’s worth noting that the Home Run Derby came on a night with very little prime-time competition, with all the other major professional sports in their offseasons and the network TV stations gone to reruns or summer programming.
Still, it’s a pleasant reminder that despite the much-maligned death of baseball as the United States’ national pastime, the sport still pulls serious weight. That an exhibition — which is itself a sideshow to another exhibition — should out-rate meaningful NBA Playoffs games suggests people still dig the longball, and that baseball can still capture the attention of the national audience.
And it means a whole lot of people got to appreciate Bryce Harper’s bro-hawk.
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