Did You Skip Opener? You Weren’t Alone

Game 1 of the World Series got the lowest television rating ever for a Series game, Nielsen Media Research said Tuesday.

Florida’s 7-4 victory over Cleveland Saturday night got an 11.3 rating and 22 share on NBC, a staggering 19 percent below the previous Series low, a 14.0 rating and 24 share for last year’s Game 2 between Atlanta and the New York Yankees on Fox. That Braves-Yankees game was opposite “ABC’s Monday Night Football” for part of the night.

The combined 13.0 rating for the first two games was 13 percent lower than last year’s 14.9 average for the first two games and 23 percent below the 16.8 average for the first two games in 1989, which wound up as the lowest-rated Series ever (16.4) after an earthquake delayed the final two games of the Giants-Athletics match-up.

The rating is the percentage of television homes tuned to a broadcast. The share is the percentage watching a program among those televisions on at the time.

Each rating points represents 980,000 homes.

Series schedule

Saturday: Florida 7, Cleveland 4

Sunday: Cleveland 6, Florida 1

Tuesday: Florida 14, Cleveland 11

Wednesday: at Cleveland, 5:20

Thursday: at Cleveland, 5:20

Saturday: at Florida, 5*

Sunday: at Florida, 4:35*

*-if necessary.