The White Sox are off the hook.
Last year’s World Series no longer is the lowest-rated of all time.
That distinction goes to this year’s World Series. St. Louis’ five-game victory over Detroit averaged a 10.1 rating on Fox (one ratings point is worth a little more than 1 million households).
The Sox’s sweep of Houston averaged an 11.1 rating, at the time a record low. In a carefully worded statement, Fox attributed some of the drop to St. Louis and Detroit being much smaller cities than Chicago and Houston, contributing to an average of 800,000 fewer households tuned to the games in those markets.
Yet Fox should have had better ratings because, unlike last year, the teams split the first two games. That made Game 3 pivotal. It also had a fifth game to build numbers.
The problem is that fans don’t have the endurance to watch 4-2 games that drag on more than 3 1/2 hours. Unless Major League Baseball can find a way to pick up the pace in the postseason, this year’s record-low rating might fall in 2007.
