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Overnight ratings for Game 1 of the World Series were the lowest in history
Hunter Pence hit a homer, Madison Bumgarner had another dominant outing and the San Francisco Giants took Game 1 of the World Series, but TV viewers weren't all that impressed.
According to overnight ratings, Game 1 of the 2014 World Series struck a new low. Neither the Cinderella story of the Kansas City Royals or the dynasty-in-the-making Giants seemed to captivate the nation, as the game finished with an 8.0 rating. That's worse than Game 1 of the 2012 World Series, when Game 1 got an 8.8 million overnight rating.
UPDATE: When the final numbers were determined, MLB said Wednesday afternoon the overall viewership for 2014's Game 1 beat 2012 — 12.5 milion vs. 12.2 million. The local ratings in Kansas City, according to MLB, were the highest of any Game 1 since 2007.
Nationally, however, given the Giants' blowout win, ratings slipped as the night went on. Here's John Ourand of Sports Business Journal:
World Series Game 1 pulled an 8.0 overnight, down nearly 15% from last year's World Series Game 1 (Red Sox-Cardinals).
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) October 22, 2014
World Series overnight rating mainly was hurt by a non-competitive game. The end-of-game numbers are dismal: 6.3 rating from 11:30-11:45p.
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) October 22, 2014
What else were people watching? Well, Nielsen pegs the Game 1 audience at 10.68 million viewers. That wasn't as much as "NCIS" (16.88 million), "The Voice" (11.50 million) or "NCIS: New Orleans" (15.87 million). Luckily, ABC's "Selfie" only managed 3.81 million viewers.
Baseball people will tell you to take ratings with a grain of salt. People have far more viewing options these days, so ratings don't tell the whole story. It's kind of like how every year album sales hit a new low. They're never going to be what they used to be. And, on the flip side, MLB continues to enjoy record revenues.
A couple worthwhile points from the Twittersphere:
Here's what you have to look at with the WS ratings: it was a bad game between a team with little nat'l brand vs. one everyone's tired of.
— Steve Lepore (@stevelepore) October 22, 2014
Here come WS TV ratings nos. Down 15% from 2013. Remember: if MLB cared about ratings, it wouldn't cut deals for big $ w cable networks
— Wendy Thurm (@hangingsliders) October 22, 2014
The more the postseason moves off the networks & ESPN, the fewer fans will watch, at least in short term. MLB chose the big $.
— Wendy Thurm (@hangingsliders) October 22, 2014
Much like the Royals, we'll wait and see if things go better in Game 2.
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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
