As it turns out, Canton comes a lot closer to ratings heaven than Iowa.
Last Thursday, Fox televised the first NFL preseason game of the 2021 season. This Thursday, Fox televised the much-hyped Field of Dreams baseball game. And the football game drew a much larger audience.
Fox had an average audience of 7.3 million for Cowboys-Steelers in a football game that ultimately means nothing. Seven days later, Fox drew 5.9 million for the Yankees and the White Sox in a regular-season baseball game played in an iconic location.
That’s not a knock on baseball; it’s just a statement of numbers-don’t-lie fact. It was indeed the highest-rated regular-season baseball game in 16 years. But when that new high-water mark still falls 1.4 million viewers behind a football games replete with backups, it demonstrates that, when it comes to football, if you build it, a lot more people will come.