Baseball may be America's pastime, but evidence continues to mount that baseball may be past its time as one of the country's most popular sports.
Game 2 of the World Series on Thursday night between two storied Major League Baseball programs - the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox - drew a 9.5 rating, according to SportsMediaWatch.com.
That ranks as the third lowest overnight rating for a Game 2 of the World Series. Baseball supporters will argue that it topped last year's Game 2 between the Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants, which had an 8.8 rating.
But Thursday night's game was five percent lower than Game 2 of the Rangers-Cardinals series in 2011. SportsMediaWatch.com went on to report that the last time the Red Sox played a Game 2 of a World Series - in 2007 against the Colorado Rockies, the game drew a 12.5 rating.
The last time the Red Sox and Cardinals played in Game 2 of a World Series in 2004, the ratings were 17.1, but that was on a Sunday night.
Meanwhile, the Monday Night Football broadcast between the winless New York Giants and the one-win Minnesota Vikings drew a comparable 8.4 rating and had a 9.7 rating at its peak from 9:45-10 p.m. Eastern Time.
SportsMediaWatch.com added that the Cardinals-Red Sox matchup in 2013 is only the second World Series in history to earn a single-digit overnight for Games 1 and 2, joining last year's Tigers/Giants series.
The first two games the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs in June earned overnight ratings of 10.6 and 10.2, the report said.
A silver lining for the Fox network, SportsMediaWatch.com reported, is that the Cardinals' win Thursday to tie the series at one game apiece meant that the possibility of the World Series averaging a double-digit final rating this year increases with the prospects of a long series.
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