In the land of the tweets, America’s pastime showed the world it was still with the times.
Game 1 of the World Series between the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals accumulated1.085 million tweets. Those tweets were seen 147,556,000 times by 8.106 million people. Last year’s World Series between the Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants generated 562,000 tweets seen by 7.210 million people, 11 percent and 48 percent decreases from this years’ games, respectively.
Once again, the Twitter data translates to TV as last night’s game registered a 10.5 rating, 31 percent above Game 1 of the 2014 World Series. It became the highest-rated Game 1 of the World Series game since the opener of the 2009 World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees.
Hilary Clinton may have finally visited The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and ABC may have premiered a new show in Wicked City, but none stood chance against the Fall Classic. The 8.106 million people who viewed tweets about the game were more than twice the audience of the the top five TV shows on Twitter last night, combined. The 1.085 million tweets about last night’s epic 14-inning, five-hour marathon that ended in a dramatic walk-off, were more than eight times as many as the 129,000 combined tweets about those same five shows.
Baseball’s dominance last night on Twitter overshadowed more than a few eliminations on The Voice and an E:60 report on New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edleman; it overshadowed all sports. Last night marked the opening of the NBA season featuring Lebron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers and last seasons’ MVP and NBA champions Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors, among other stars. While the World Series’ dominance over the NBA’s opener was not as glaring as over TV shows, the game still accumulated over 200,000 more tweets and 70,000 more impressions than all the NBA games from last night, combined.
Last night’s game started at 8 p.m. and ended at 1:18 a.m., meaning Nielsen had been tracking tweets and unique authors for the game from 5 p.m. Eastern time to 4:18 a.m. That 11 hours of Twitter activity tracking does not preclude last night’s popularity. The Cleveland Cavaliers match up against the Chicago Bulls started at 8 p.m., and the Golden State Warriors matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans started at 10:30 p.m., with all NBA game ending around the time last night’s World Series opener ended.
The big Twitter showdown could come this Sunday if the New York Mets can win at least one of the next three games. This Sunday would see a possibly series deciding Game 5 at Citi Field in New York City facing off against Sunday Night Football matchup between two undefeated teams, the Denver Broncos and the Green Bay Packers. The NFL is like normally a black hole for TV ratings and Twitter activity, seemingly sucking the audience of every other show in, even if momentarily, so the World Series is going to have its work cut out for it.
