Results Of The All Important Philadelphia Ratings Battle: Eagles Pull Great Numbers; Phillies Triumph Anyway

A fun sub-plot of last night's Philadelphia games was who would win the local TV ratings. For fans of both teams, it was something to discuss and debate. Well, the results are win and the results are surprising. NBC football game versus a Phillies playoff game that's not must win, on some cable channel. Not only did the Phillies surprisingly edge out the Eagles, but both pulled some overwhelmingly amazing numbers. From myfoxphilly.com

But the big x-factor is the number of people who constantly used a remote control to watch both games, or had access to several TV sets.

Many people we talked to found a way to watch both games, which started in the 8 o’clock hour for Philadelphia viewers.
In preliminary numbers, which will be updated later Monday, the Phillies had 834,000 viewers of all ages while the Eagles had 741,000 viewers.

The majority of TV sets in the Philadelphia viewing area were watching one of the two games Sunday night.

In the key demographic group of adults 25 to 54 targeted by advertisers, the Phillies had a rating of 19.7 compared with an 18.1 for the Eagles.

Helping matters was the fact that both games were close and the Eagles ratings went up 6 points after the final out in the Phillies game.

Both the Eagles and the Phillies did stunningly well last night, with the Phillies doing slightly better than the Eagles. Think about this fact: More people watched Sunday Night Football last night more in Philadelphia than in any other individual city, and yet, it still was not the highest rated program in the city! While another story completely, Sunday Night Football killed nationally, beating the Phillies game by 200%.

If this proves anything about Philadelphia, it is this. Today, Philadelphia is not a baseball town. Philadelphia is not a football town. Philadelphia is a sports town.