World Series Game 4 Ratings Prove That NFL Is Kind Of Unstoppable

On the surface, that seems absurd. Then you realize that the regular season football game between the Steelers and Saints also drew higher ratings than last year’s Stanley Cup, last year’s NBA finals, and team USA’s final game in the World Cup against Ghana. And, of course, the Stanley Cup, the World Cup, and the NBA finals didn’t go up against football.

A lot of attention has been paid to the fact that regular season football is apparently more interesting, overall, than championship baseball. But that isn’t what’s important here, because it isn’t new news. What’s important here are two things:

(1) The NFL is an unstoppable ratings machine. Our own Jon Bois already discussed this at some length, and it’s plainly evident that the National Football League could draw at least eight million people by airing archived footage of Cortez Kennedy doing sit-ups.

(2) Game 4 did better. While Game 4 might have been outwatched by a regular season football game, it also drew far better ratings than Saturday’s Game 3, which was the second least-watched World Series game in TV history. This just goes to show that, while you can still get your ratings going up against the NFL, you’re in trouble when you go up against a Saturday on Halloween weekend.

Game 5 of the World Series is scheduled for 7:57pm ET Monday night. The Texans and Colts are going to play at 8:30. Monday night football’s probably going to outdraw what could end up being the final baseball game of the season. But this doesn’t reflect on baseball. The Giants and Rangers will get the ratings they get. This reflects more on the NFL, and how it, like Two And A Half Men, has literally become too big to fail.