In Ratings, Football Rolls Over Baseball

The days when baseball, the national pastime, was the nation’s most popular sport are long gone. King football rules.

Even a one-run, postseason baseball thriller, a fifth and deciding game between the New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians, could not come close to outdrawing a regular-season NFL game that turned out to be a 34-13 rout.

In national ratings released Tuesday, Monday night’s football game between the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots on ABC beat Monday night’s baseball game on Fox, 13.9 to 9.8.

The margin was even greater in Los Angeles, 18.7 to 10.9, which shows this is still a pro football town even without any NFL teams here.

“When you see direct competition in which an NFL blowout still out-rates a thrilling postseason major league baseball game, then there’s no doubt about what America wants to watch,” ABC spokesman Mark Mandel said.

Fox, meanwhile, was satisfied with its baseball rating. The 9.8 is higher than the 8.2 average for Fox’s four prime-time postseason baseball telecasts so far and the 8.2 average is higher than the 7.0 average for two first-round playoff games on Fox a year ago.

The 9.8 is also higher than the 7.4 Fox has been averaging for its regular Monday night programming.

Each national rating point represents 1% of the nation’s 98 million television households; an L.A. rating point represents 1% of 5,009,230 TV households in this market.

“The audience was fragmented, but a combined rating for the two events of well over 20 bodes well for both sports and network television,” said Fox’s Vince Wladika, adding that the conflict was unavoidable.

“You can’t blame us, and you can’t blame baseball,” he said. “To get the first round over in time, you had to schedule a possible fifth game opposite ‘Monday Night Football.’

“Would we have preferred not going up against ‘Monday Night Football’? Sure. But it turned out to be a great night of sports viewing, and again shows what a great invention the remote control is. I’m sure most viewers went back and forth between the two games.”

Although the NFL doesn’t like to admit it, one reason for football’s rise in popularity over the past couple of decades is that so many people bet on football, whether it be an office pool, in a Las Vegas sports book or with a bookie.

Dennis Dahl, the director of the sports book at the MGM Grand, said about three times as much money was bet on the football game Monday night as the baseball game.

“Everyone understands what a point spread is,” Dahl said. “The money line in baseball is confusing to the general public.”

Robert Walker, the Mirage’s sports-book director, said about five times more was bet on the football game at his establishment.

“There are some mitigating factors, such as the football game was posted all week, although about 80% of the money bet comes in the day of a game,” he said. “Also, the limit on football is three times higher.”

The Mirage’s posted limit for regular customers is $30,000 for football, $10,000 for baseball. Known high rollers are given a higher limit.

“Another thing about football is there are so many side bets [the over-under, the halftime score, etc.],” Walker said. “It’s tailor-made for gambling. No other sport comes close to football except a heavyweight title fight.”

But it’s not only the gambling.

A check of a few sports bars Monday night showed most patrons were watching football.

“There’s a couple down at the end of the bar who asked to watch the baseball game, but, yes, most of the people in here are here to watch the football game,” said Tom Whitenack, proprietor of the Station in Arcadia, where three of five sets were tuned into the football game.

Whitenack pointed to a customer wearing a John Elway jersey and said, “It’s pretty easy to tell which sport is more popular.”