Almost No One Is Watching the World Series, but No One Is Watching Football

Where have all the sports fans gone? It's an inevitable question after looking at ratings for big games this week: The World Series matches on Sunday and Monday night attracted far more viewers than football games aired in the same timeslot—and yet the Cardinals-vs-Rangers world championship is on track to tie for the lowest-rated series ever.

USA Today tries to make sense of this "phenomenal Black Hole for TV sports ratings":

Weird: Fox's World Series swamped NFL ratings on back-to-back nights and yet this Series so far is on pace to be the lowest-rated ever.

Say what? It's a sort of a phenomenal Black Hole for TV sports ratings -- especially NFL ratings. Fox's W.S. Game 5 drew a 8.8 national rating, which translates to 8.8% of U.S. households. That's even from last year's Giants-Rangers Game 5. Fox's W.S. games are running 1% below last year's Series, which tied the 2008 Series as the lowest-rated ever. (This Series, however, is likely to avoid an all-time low given that it will last at least six games.)

Still, Fox baseball last night crushed ESPN's Monday Night Football. Jacksonville's less-than-memorable 12-7 win over Baltimore to lift the Jags' record to 2-5 drew a stunningly tiny 5.8 overnight. That would be an all-time MNF low and, not surprisingly, ESPN has asked Nielsen to double-check its calculations.

Read the full story at USA Today.