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Game 5 of the World Series Beats Sunday Night Football in TV Ratings

World Series Game 5 between the Astros and Dodgers drew higher TV ratings than Steelers-Lions on Sunday Night Football. The Astros won an all-time thriller 13-12 on Alex Bregman's walkoff hit in the 10th inning.

Sunday night saw one of the rarities in sports television ratings:

Major League Baseball beat the NFL.

In fact, it trounced it.

The thrilling 10-inning win by the Astros in Game 5 of the World Series drew a 12.8 overnight, per Austin Karp of Sports Business Daily. That topped the 9.4 overnight rating, per an industry source, for the Steelers’ win over the Lions on NBC.

Karp said the MLB numbers for the Boston and Hartford markets did not come in due to weather so the likelihood is the baseball rating is even higher. NBC said the Sunday Night Football ratings also did not include the Boston, Hartford and Providence markets.

It’s not the only time the World Series has topped Sunday Night Football in the overnights but it is not a regular occurrence. Last year Cubs-Indians Game 3 drew a 15.3 overnight rating, topping Cowboys-Eagles (11.6). According to Sports Media Watch, that was the first time since 2013 that the World Series has topped SNF head-to-head.

Fox said the World Series game peaked at a 14.5 overnight rating from 11:30 to 11:45 p.m. ET.

The 12.8 overnight rating was up 9% over the 2015 Game 5 rating (11.7) for the Royals and Mets and 56% higher than the 8.2 rating for Giants-Royals in 2014.