FS1 averaged 4.367 million viewers for Giants-Cardinals NLCS Game 2 on Sunday night, marking the most-watched telecast in the cable net's short history. The previous record was set just last week, when FS1 drew 3.921 million viewers for the Giants' NLDS-clinching Game 4 win over the Nationals. Sunday's game peaked at 5.716 million viewers from 11:30-11:45pm ET. St. Louis led all markets with a 24.5 local rating, the best figure ever for an FS1 event in the market. The S.F.-Oakland-San Jose market scored a 16.1 local rating. Meanwhile, Giants-Cardinals Game 1 on Fox posted 5.0 million viewers on Saturday night. The beginning of the game -- around 8:00pm -- was up against the conclusion of Royals-Orioles ALCS Game 1 on TBS. Giants-Cardinals bumped to 5.3 million viewers from 8:30-8:45 once Royals-Orioles ended and peaked at 6.2 million viewers from 10:45-11:00pm. Game 1 also set new records for a Spanish-language telecast on Fox Deportes. TBS carried last year’s Cardinals-Dodgers NLCS, scoring 5.45 million viewers for Game 1, which began in primetime and lasted 13 innings. TBS then averaged 3.4 million viewers for Cardinals-Dodgers Game 2, which began around 4:00pm on a Saturday. FS1's top three, and six of its top 10 broadcasts on record are '14 MLB postseason games. Meanwhile, Sunday was Fox Sports Go's best day ever for authenticated streaming, breaking the app's previous mark set Oct. 4 during the NLDS (Josh Carpenter, Staff Writer).
ON THE CLOCK: The AP's Mike Fitzpatrick writes the MLB postseason has "offered up all the drama any fan could ask for this year -- if you can stay awake long enough to see it unfold." With playoff games "now commonly pushing past 3 1/2 hours, sticking around from start to finish is becoming a time-consuming task like never before." Orioles P Darren O'Day said, "They're really slow. It's tough to watch. I understand it's postseason, but these are just taking too long." Fitzpatrick notes the average time of the 20 postseason games played so far was 3 hours, 49 minutes. Five of those went to extra innings, so those "skew the numbers a bit." But even the nine-inning games have averaged 3 hours, 31 minutes, which is "quite a jump from 3:02 during the regular season, which set a record for the longest mark in major league history." Meanwhile, postseason commercial breaks "are usually 2 minutes, 55 seconds -- 30 seconds longer than a national telecast during the regular season, and 50 seconds longer than a typical local broadcast." So that "adds about 8-14 minutes to each game." Throw in "expanded instant replay this year, and it's a recipe for some long nights" (AP, 10/14). In Cincinnati, Paul Daugherty notes MLB "worries about losing young fans," and "it should." Kids whose attention spans are "dictated by Twitter and Madden 2015 aren't hanging out by the flat screen for four hours for anything that doesn't come with a controller or a means to get on Facebook." Even for those who "delight in the inside moves of the game, yet another Buck Showalter pitching change is reason for catatonia." MLB "needs to fix this." The "logical answer is to shave commercial time, between innings and during the endless pitching changes," but that "won't happen" (CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, 10/14).
MARKET WATCH: BLOOMBERG NEWS' Buteau & Shaw cited analysts as saying that the "ideal matchup" for the World Series would be Giants-Orioles. The Bay Area market is the sixth-largest in the country, and while Baltimore is 26th, the team "has fans" in the DC market (eighth overall). Kantar Media Chief Research Officer Jon Swallen said that while the Royals have not been in the playoffs since '85, the team is "unlikely to capture the public’s imagination without a well-known player." Swallen: "Cinderella is easier to sell if there is at least one recognizable face to attach Cinderella to." But Fox Sports Senior VP/Programming & Research Mike Mulvihill said that the net "isn’t concerned that small-market teams will meet in the World Series." Mulvihill in an e-mail wrote, "Obviously, a long NLCS and a long World Series provide the best opportunity for success.” Buteau & Shaw wrote the "worst scenario" would be an Cardinals-Royals matchup. Horizon Media Dir of Research Brad Adgate said, "A battle of Missouri, I don't know how well that would play on the coasts." Meanwhile, Swallen said that with 30-second commercials "selling for about $470,000 this year, each additional game beyond the World Series minimum of four can produce" about $43M in additional ad revenue (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 10/13).
