After a hitting a season-high for Red Sox/Yankees one week earlier, Major League Baseball on FOX fell back to Earth last weekend.
Regional Major League Baseball action featuring Angels/Red Sox drew a 1.9 final rating and nearly 3.1 million viewers on FOX last Saturday night, down 5% in ratings from coverage featuring Mets/Yankees last year (2.0), but up 19% and 27%, respectively, from afternoon coverage featuring Cubs/Cardinals in 2010 (1.6, 2.4M).
The telecast ranks as the second-most viewed of the season on any network, trailing only coverage featuring Red Sox/Yankees on FOX the previous week (3.3M).
With that said, the telecast was also the eighth of nine FOX windows this year to draw less than a 2.0 final rating.
For the third straight week, baseball on FOX drew fewer viewers than competing Stanley Cup playoff coverage on NBC (3.8M).
Early this week, this site and Sports Business Daily reported that Saturday’s telecast drew a 3.2 overnight rating — easily a FOX season-high. However, the website ShowBuzz Daily reported that the game had a 2.2 overnight, which certainly seems more in line with the 1.9 final.
(Weekend numbers from Sports Business Daily; additional information from ShowBuzz Daily)
