Curt Schilling didn’t shed his blood on the mound in vain Sunday night.
Not only did the pitcher, who threw for the first six innings despite a serious ankle injury, help take the Boston Red Sox to victory against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 2 of baseball’s World Series but the game also turned out to be the most-watched Game 2 of the fall classic in nearly a decade.
Reliable national estimates for Fox’s live game coverage won’t be available until Tuesday, but Fox estimated that the game delivered about 25.4 million viewers and 9.0 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic.
According to Fox, that makes it the most-watched World Series Game 2 since the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves met in the 1995 series. Compared to the second game in last year’s New York Yankees-Florida Marlins series, Sunday’s numbers were up 24% in total viewers and 22% in adults 18-49.
The World Series competition took a definite toll on the turnout for CBS and NBC’s regular lineups, but ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” remained hot in its 9 p.m. berth with an average of 21.3 million viewers and 9.7 rating/21 share in adults 18-49, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research.
“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” (14.6 million, 6.2/15) also held up well against the atypical sports competition, spiking from its 7 p.m. “America’s Funniest Home Videos” lead-in (7.8 million, 2.5/7). At 10 p.m., however, ABC’s freshman drama “Boston Legal” (11.3 million, 4.7/11) continued to have a hard time hanging on to “Housewives”‘ coattails and fell behind NBC’s “Crossing Jordan” (11.7 million, 4.1/10) in the hour in total viewers.
For the night, ABC was poised to run second to Fox in viewers (13.8 million) and adults 18-49 (5.8/14).
Credit: Reuters/Yahoo/Hollywood Reporter
