On Halloween night, here are some numbers that should put a scare into Bud Selig:
- FOX Saturday Baseball drew the lowest ratings ever for a regular season MLB package on broadcast (2.0 rating for 26 telecasts).
- The NLCS was the least viewed League Championship Series ever on broadcast (4.8 rating, 7.5 million viewers).
- The ALCS and NLCS were the second and third least viewed League Championship Series in baseball history (7.4 and 7.5 million viewers, respectively).
- Despite being the highest rated and most viewed Major League Baseball telecast ever on cable, Game 7 between the Rays and Red Sox was the lowest rated, least viewed Game 7 in baseball history (7.9 rating, 13.4 million viewers).
- Thanks to a lengthy rain delay, Game 3 between the Phillies and Rays became the first World Series game to ever draw fewer than 10 million viewers (6.1 rating, 9.8 million). The 6.1 rating for Game 3 of the World Series was lower than the rating for this year’s Pro Bowl (6.3).
- For the first time ever, not a single baseball game — regular season, All Star or otherwise — drew a double digit rating.
- The World Series was the lowest rated, least viewed ever (8.4, 13.6 million), marking the fifth time this decade the Fall Classic has drawn record low ratings (2000, 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2008).
- This year marks only the third time ever that the NBA Finals drew a higher rating than the World Series in the same calendar year. The two prior occasions involved Michael Jordan (1993 and 1998).
On the bright side:
- Game 7 of the ALCS was the highest rated, most viewed telecast of any kind in TBS history, and is the second-most viewed telecast of the year on cable. Game 6 was the third most-viewed playoff game ever on cable.
- The 3 1/2 inning conclusion of Game 5 of the World Series drew 19.8 million viewers, proving that under the right circumstances, baseball can still draw a massive prime time audience.
- The 8.4 record low rating for the World Series is still 35% higher than the lowest rating for the NBA Finals (6.2, 2007), and 171% higher than the rating for this year’s Stanley Cup Finals (3.1 on NBC).
