Wednesday night's Game 1 of the World Series delivered a big ratings victory to Fox along with a win for the San Francisco Giants, but it fell short of last year's opening game of the World Series.
The San Francisco-Detroit matchup posted a 7.6 rating/12 share in Nielsen's household fast nationals, and drew 12.2 million total viewers, delivering Fox's best numbers since the "American Idol" season finale in May.
Which is impressive, though slightly less impressive than last year's performance, when Game 1 of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers drew an 8.7/14 and an average 14.2 million total viewers.
Part of that can be chalked up to the early lead that the Giants opened up in the game. Initial tune-in to Wednesday's game was nearly identical to last year's match-up, but dropped off as the game began to shape up as a blowout, with the Giants taking a 6-0 lead by the fifth inning. Last year's game ended in a much closer, 3-2 victory for the Cardinals. (Wednesday's game ended in an 8-3 victory for the Giants.)
In terms of the individual markets, Detroit edged out San Francisco, with Detroit taking a 33.2/46 versus San Francisco's 32.3/58.
At least Detroit pulled off some kind of victory on Wednesday.
