St. Louis sets Home Run Derby ratings record
ST. LOUIS — With some of the National League’s finest sluggers and two hometown hitters on display Monday night in the annual Home Run Derby, the St. Louis area shattered the television rating record for the event, which was carried live on ESPN.
The St. Louis area had the highest local rating in the 10-year history of the telecast, drawing an 18.9. That clobbered the previous local record set by Milwaukee in 2002 with a 15.9, according to ESPN official Dave Nagle.
The Derby’s overall rating was down somewhat from last year’s at Yankee Stadium, but overall it’s 5.6 overnight rating in 50 meter markets was the second-highest for any ESPN broadcast that year, Nagle said. Final numbers will be available later today and the Derby may yet surpass any other broadcast.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
Maybe everyone wants to watch in case its another 40 some years before it comes back. Lets see there’s 30 teams, so what the hell took so long. I guess New York fans didnt have to wait 2 or 3 generations for it to visit their city again. Stupid Bud Selig.
Greg - what took so long? Easy. The game was held here in 1957, but again in 1966 due to the new Stadium. Because St. Louis moved up in rotation then, it was taken out of rotation after 1966 for nearly 20 years because of the cycle.
Then the rules were changed to make cities bid for the game. It’s not a cheap proposition and most times it’s not worth it, and Anheuser Busch realized it when they owned the team, they didn’t need the game here to sell beer. With a new stadium, it was worth it to DeWitt to bid for the game and market the team and stadium.
It was NOT Bud Selig’s fault.
Derrick, in the future, reference the company that did the survey. It was Nielsen. Don’t just take ESPN’s word for it. They’ll spin anything to their advantage.