Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Gap with 'Monday Night Football' closes
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Buoyed by the presence of the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, baseball's division series was the highest-rated on network television in eight years.
Fox Sports averaged a 7.5 rating for its five national
broadcasts, a 21 percent increase from last season's 6.2. It was
the highest rating since 1995, when the first-round playoff games
were regionalized on the Baseball Network and got a 10.4.
Baseball's playoff ratings on ESPN also were much higher than
last year. The nine games on ESPN averaged a 3.9 rating (3,411,000
households) and the four games on ESPN2 averaged a 2.8 (2,388,000
households).
"It really shows that if you provide compelling matchups and
interesting games that fans continue to be captivated by
baseball," Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, said
Tuesday.
Despite the high ratings, baseball was still beaten by the NFL
on Monday night. Game 5 of the Boston-Oakland series got an 8.5
rating compared with a season-low 10.2 for ABC's coverage of
Indianapolis at Tampa Bay.
Since 1996, no baseball playoff game in the first two rounds has
beaten "Monday Night Football" in ratings.
However, this year's 20 percent edge for the NFL was
considerably lower than last year, when the Green Bay-Chicago
football game (10.6) was 54 percent higher than Game 5 between San
Francisco and Atlanta. This year's baseball game increased 23
percent from last year.
Fox's five-game average in the division series was also higher
than the 6.5 for the NBA Finals and the 7.0 for NASCAR's five
highest-rated races on NBC or Fox.
The 21 percent increase is the highest for any sport the past
year, beating a 14 percent jump for the Bowl Championship Series
college football games on ABC.
The combined average of 3,047,000 homes for the ESPN games was up 52 percent from
last year when the games were shown on ABC Family.
Three of Fox's games involved the Cubs, including the
highest-rated national afternoon division series game ever on
Saturday (6.0) and the second highest-rated game ever (9.8) for
Game 5 on Sunday.
A ratings point on Fox represents 1,067,000 households, or 1
percent of the nation's estimated 106.7 million TV homes. Fox is in
the third year of a $2.5 billion, six-year contract with baseball.
Once again, Fox will regionalize coverage of one game in the
LCS. On Wednesday night, Game 2 of the NLCS between the Cubs and
Florida and the opener of the ALCS between the Red Sox and Yankees
will both start at 8:18 p.m. ET.
One game will be shown on Fox with the other on the FX cable
network, drawing criticism from some fans.
"It's a nice problem to have," DuPuy said. "Of course you'd
rather have games where everybody can see every game. That's the
only day with the overlap. It's something we look at every year.
The fact that fans are clamoring for both games is a good sign."
The combined average of 3,047,000 homes for the ESPN games was up 52 percent from
last year when the games were shown on ABC Family.
Game 3 between Chicago and Atlanta on Friday night got a 6.7
rating on ESPN, the highest-rated division series game ever on
cable. The game the next night between Oakland and Boston got a 3.6
on ESPN2, that network's highest-rated show ever.
