Game One of 2010 World Series way off in the ratings

Game One of the 2010 World Series featuring the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants failed to draw a very large audience. Of course we kind of knew that was going to happen as anyone living east of the Mississippi River has little to no interest in watching these two teams duel for the world championship. This is an event for baseball purists, and given the crowded market in today’s entertainment world baseball has an uphill battle in gaining a large TV audience.

The good news is Fox earned an 8.9 rating and had over 15 million viewers. The bad news is the game did not win the TV night as it lost to ABC’s Modern Family in the key male demographics. Not good news at all. In all the rating was down 25% and the viewership was down 23%. Both bad numbers in themselves, but in historic terms this was one of the worst rated World Series games since Game One of 1968.

In terms of every World Series game played if was the fifth lowest rated game in history (going back to at least 1968). The worst news is the other four lowest rated World Series games all came in recent baseball history. This seems to indicate that baseball is losing the ratings war with, well with about every other option out there.

Sure they still had 15 million viewers and that is a very respectable number, but the World Series is played in the heart of both the college football and NFL seasons. Many viewers, including sports idiots like myself, switch gears by this point in the year and have moved on to football, basketball, and hockey. In my mind the World Series comes far too late in the year, regardless of the match up.

Related Links:

• The Business of Major League Baseball
• MTR Baseball
• Joshua Lobdell.com