Monday Night Football Gets Higher Ratings Than Baseball Playoffs

Football won its Monday night ratings showdown with baseball even though the meeting between the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees was the highest-rated division playoff game since 1995.

The game between the NFL’s last two unbeaten teams, the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots, was watched in about 13-1/2 million homes, some 4 million more than the baseball game.

National ratings showed ABC Sports with a 13.9 and 23 share for the football game, while Fox did a 9.8 and 16 share for baseball.

In overnight ratings, the NFL game did a 15.2 rating and 23 share while baseball had an 11.6 and 18.

Each national ratings point represents 970,000 homes. The share is the percentage watching a program among those televisions in use at the time. Overnight ratings cover 59 percent of the country.