It may have been a coup for Anaheim to get Major League Baseball's 2010 All-Star Game, but as of now that particular Midsummer Classic has the distinction of having drawn the lowest television ratings ever.
Tuesday night's game on Fox had a 7.5 household rating and an average of 12.1
million viewers, according to the the Nielsen Co. That's down 15.7 percent from the 8.9 overnight for the 2009 All-Star
Game, and well below the previous lowest-ever 8.1 in 2005.
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Nielsen's All-Star Game ratings data date back to 1967, when the game drew a 25.6 rating.
Some have commented this year's game, which the National League won, 3-1, was a snooze fest. Others have called the first NL win since 1996 exciting. Boring or not, it gives the league without a designated hitter rule home field advantage at this year's World Series.
Can you imagine if the Angels make it to the World Series, barely lose 4 games to 3 and thus have the All-Star Game they hosted to blame for not locking up home-field advantage?
That would leave a Rally Monkey-sized lump in many fans' throats.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.