World Series Game 2 draws 49.6 TV rating in Kansas City

The Kansas City Royals not only evened up the World Series against the San Francisco Giants in Game 2 on Wednesday night, they also scored an impressive victory of sorts against the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs in the local TV ratings.

Kansas City's TV market is No. 31 in the country, and San Francisco's is sixth, so MLB's strong showing among World Series towns impacts only about 3 percent of the country's televisions. Local results are another matter.

Although the Royals have gained ground on the Chiefs this season, it's not often they're measurably more popular than the local football team. Chiefs games during the 2013-2014 season pulled a 42.9 overall rating and reached 48.0 for Kansas City's epic playoff debacle on the road against the Indianapolis Colts. Among the entire NFL viewership, only the New Orleans Saints did better in the local TV ratings during the regular season than the Chiefs.

Some critics seem to enjoy lamenting how MLB's postseason ratings have declined through the years, but comparing TV ratings historically is tricky because of the expansion of choices available over cable and satellite providers over the past 30 years. Factoring in the rise in popularity of the NFL, the nature of a football season — when there's one local game per week, even during the playoffs — is incongruent to baseball, which gets most of its postseason results via series that are spread over a week or longer.

Regardless, the Royals strong local TV numbers show how much interest there is in a team playing in the World Series for the first time since 1985. If they get into a position to clinch a championship in Games 5, 6 or 7, it will be noteworthy to see how far beyond 50 percent the ratings can go in K.C.

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David Brown is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rdbrown@yahoo-inc.com and follow him on Twitter!

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