Sunday's baseball game watched by 13.4 million
David
TBS Sets MLB Cable Record With ALCS Game 7
13.4 Million Tuned In Tampa’s Triumph Over Boston, Knocking McGwire
From Scorecard
By Mike Reynolds
The Tampa Bay Rays took out the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the
American League Championship Series Sunday night. TBS’s coverage of
the upstarts’ triumph also took Mark McGwire and ESPN out of the
record books as cable’s most-watched baseball telecast ever and is
cable’s second most-watched telecast of the year.
The Oct. 19 game – a 3-1 Tampa win that thwarted Boston’s bid to again
rally from a 3-1 games deficit in the ALCS for a second straight
season and defend their World Series crown -- drew a 7.9 national
rating, 9.2 cable rating and 13.4 million viewers, according to
Nielsen Media Research data.
That topped ESPN's coverage of the Sept. 2, 1998 contest in which
McGwire hit his 61st home run to tie Roger Maris with what was
then-Major League Baseball’s home run record. The Rays-Bosox count
trailed only the 18.6 million watchers for the Sept. 15 Monday Night
Football matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia
Eagles.That contest is cable's most-watched live event ever, and
trails only Disney Channel's telefilm High School Musical by 2,000 on
a live+seven-day basis.
Lifted by the Sunday night’s total and 8.9 million viewers for Game 6,
TBS averaged a 4.6 national rating, 5.4 cable and 7.44 million
watchers over the seven games.
All told, TBS’s ALCS national ratings average was up 64% from its
coverage of the 2007 National League Championship Series, while the
cable average also climbed 64% above the 3.3 generated by the
network's coverage of the Colorado Rockies’ four-game sweep over the
Arizona Diamondbacks. Viewership almost doubled, rising 96% above last
season's 3.79 million NLCS average.
TBS officials said the 2008 ALCS outperformed the 2007 NLCS by 96%
among persons 18 to 34, 83% among adults 18 to 49 and 86% among the
25-to-54 set.
The Boston DMA averaged a 26.1 household rating over the seven games,
while Tampa-St. Pete scored a 20.2 household rating for TBS.