Fox' Game Three MLB Ratings Down 7% From Last Year

Fox Earns 10.2 Nielsen Rating For Game Three

Fox earned a 10.2/17 Nielsen rating for Game Three of the Tigers-Cardinals World Series last night, down 7% from an 11.0/21 for Game Three of the White-Sox Astros series last year, which lasted 14 innings. Last night's game earned a 4.8/13 among adults 18-49, giving Fox the win in the demo for the night (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).

RIDING THE PINE TAR: Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal during the network’s pregame coverage last night interviewed MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and MLBPA Exec Dir Don Fehr about the brown smudge on Tigers P Kenny Rogers’ hand during Game Two that some thought was a pine tar.

Rosenthal: “As commissioner, what do you tell the average fan who’s wondering about the enforcement of baseball rules with regard to what happened with Kenny Rogers Sunday night?”

Selig: “These disputes have gone since way back when. I can remember them in the ‘40s and ‘50s and ‘60s. ... I think the situation was handled as well as it could be and handled right by the way. ... Neither the umpires nor (Cardinals manager Tony La Russa) felt any need to press on, so I think we’ll just leave it at that.”

Fehr: “When you have incidents that relate to on the field, the first thing you have to decide is whether or not there’s anything remaining after the people charged with enforcing the rules on the field have done what they’ve done; and I agree with Bud that they’ve acted and I think it’s probably a closed issue” (Fox, 10/24).

COVERAGE OF ROGERS: In St. Louis, Dan Caesar writes Fox “addressed Rogersgate for much of its pregame show.” Analysts Kevin Kennedy and Joe Girardi defended La Russa “for not making a big issue of the incident at the time.” ESPN Radio analyst Joe Morgan “took a firm stance on that network before the game,” saying, “Cheating is cheating” (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 10/25). In Detroit, Steve Schrader writes Fox’ Joe Buck and Tim McCarver “more or less stuck to the baseball and, unlike Game 2, left the ‘Dateline’ exposes to another network.” Fox’ Jeanne Zelasko and the pregame analysts “recapped the Smudge Report on Kenny Rogers and pretty much concluded everybody did the right thing. Case closed. Play ball” (DETROIT FREE PRESS, 10/25). Also in Detroit, Kupelian & O’Hara write Fox is “obviously playing the story for all its worth to get ratings” (DETROIT NEWS, 10/25). ABC’s “Good Morning America” ran a three-minute story about Rogers’ smudge and the trend of cheating in sports (“GMA,” ABC, 10/25).