The Question, Wednesday 10/24/12: How Much of the TV World Will the Series Attract?

I'm not going to do many sports Questions because 1) many of you probably don't care much about sports ratings and 2) the logistics are a bit funky because sports ratings are often tied up in "game quality." (See the special time rule at the bottom.) But Game 1 of the World Series is one of the most important data points in the sports TV ratings world, and this will be a nice excuse to re-link to my past World Series ratings info. If you're just into scripted TV, you can look at it as a question of how much competition your shows will have tonight, I guess! How much of the TV world will the Series attract? That's The Question for Wednesday, October 24, 2012.

As mentioned in the post where the above chart first appeared, the World Series clearly has its "have" years and its "have-not" years, and the difference between the two is whether one of the truly nationwide franchises is in the Series. The Red Sox were in the 2007 Series and the Yankees were in the 2009 Series. The Yankees/Red Sox years hovered around a 6.0 demo for Game 1, while the last three "have-not" Game 1's have fallen somewhere between 4.0 and 5.0.

Tonight's competitors, the Detroit Tigers and the San Francisco Giants, are not national franchises, and Fox's NLCS ratings were pretty underwhelming this year. The one positive is that Detroit may have some appealing star power with arguably the best hitter in the game (Miguel Cabrera), the best pitcher (Justin Verlander) and the recognizable Prince Fielder. Not sure what would get action on both sides, so I'll go just above last year's 4.2. That was the lowest Game 1 number since they moved to the current scheduling with Game 1 on Wednesday.

Over/Under: 4.3.

SPORTS RULE: IF YOU ENTER AND WIN AFTER THE START OF THE GAME (8:00 PM ET), YOU ONLY GET CREDIT FOR A "HALF-WIN." Since sports ratings are often tied up in how "good" the game is (or, perhaps more accurately, how long the game runs) I'm attaching a penalty if you wait till that extra info is available, whether you use it or not.

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