The World Series hit a series-high opposite Thursday Night Football, but it did not come away unscathed.
Thursday’s Astros-Phillies World Series Game 5 averaged a 7.0 rating and 12.77 million viewers on FOX (13.01M across all platforms), down 5% in ratings and 8% in viewership from Astros-Braves last year (7.4, 13.82M), but still the most-watched game of the series. Both this year and last, Game 5 aired directly opposite competing NFL action, but unlike last year’s Sunday night Game 5 — which aired directly after FOX NFL coverage — this year’s game had no NFL lead-in.
The competing Eagles-Texans Thursday Night Football game — pitting the same cities as the World Series — averaged a 3.7 and 7.86 million viewers on Amazon Prime. The undefeated Eagles likely pulled some viewers away from the Phillies as Game 5 drew a 25.9 rating and 50 share in Philadelphia, down from Game 4 (26.6/53). The Texans had no similar impact on the Astros, as Houston posted a series-high 25.5/55 — up sharply from Game 4 (24.0/52).
This year marks the first time since 2017 that a World Series game has beaten the NFL head-to-head, with the caveat that prior matchups pit the Fall Classic against the higher-rated Sunday Night Football package. The World Series will go head-to-head with SNF should the Phillies win Saturday night to force a Sunday night Game 7.
Though the World Series averaged substantially more viewers, the NFL game won the head-to-head in adults 18-34 (2.7 to 2.0) and 18-49 (3.2 to 3.0) and finished in a virtual tie in 25-54 (3.66 to 3.67). Compared to last year’s Game 5 (2.1, 3.1, 4.0, pending revision), ratings declined in all three young adult demos — marking the first decline of the series in 18-34 and 18-49 and the second in 25-54.
Despite the decline for Game 5, the World Series is averaging 11.64 million viewers on FOX — still up 1% from last year (11.53M) and even with 2019.
(Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 11.4, ShowBuzz Daily 11.4)
Very good numbers for the WS. Paulsen, do you think the WS numbers would have been lower if the NFL game was on broadcast or espn?
Probably — I imagine older viewers gravitated more to the WS given how much Amazon’s TNF audience skews young.
Do you think that tomorrow’s game 6 might have better numbers than this year’s NBS finals game 6 or the fact that it takes place on a saturday would make that difficult?
Another question, do you think that a possible game 7 would have better numbers than the negative record in games 7 of 2019 (Nats-Astros) or the fact that it has a dispute with the NFL makes it certain that it will be game 7 with the worst numbers ever?
Saturday night is tough, but it’s possible. Sunday night, no way. No NFL lead-in and SNF competition. Will win the head-to-head, but will be lucky to get 20M viewers (at least in my opinion).
NFL lead in is available for Fox tomorrow if I does go to 7 games (since Fox has featured the late 4:05 pm et kickoff Seahawks vs Cardinals (which is the only late game on the slate) so there’s a chance it could be as good as a normal game 5 of the WS