After World Series epic, what have super-long games meant in the past?

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Precedents for Jays-Dodgers' 18-inning game in baseball and other sports, and what they've meant

The Los Angeles Dodgers' eventual 18-inning win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 3 of the World Series Monday, which tied for the longest (by inning length) game in World Series history, was quite something. Joe Posnanski's piece on it is a great recap read for those who might not have stayed up that late. But it got me thinking; while we don't have U.S. or Canadian TV ratings for it yet, we can look back at some incredibly long high-implication games in baseball and other sports and see what they've meant in TV ratings.

MLB: World Series Game 3, 2018: Dodgers 3, Red Sox 2 (18 innings, Fox): Yes, seven years ago, the Dodgers were involved in the previous longest World Series game. (And that one was actually longer in terms of time, spanning seven hours and 20 minutes versus Monday's six hours and 39 minutes, one of the many fun facts the excellent Sarah Langs has on this one at MLB.com.) That game averaged 13.5 million viewers, below the 14.1 million average for that series, but most of that came with 17.6 million viewers in the clinching Game 5. (Game 3 was the only one the Dodgers won.)

There are a few notes to that, though. That 2018 game (also won on a walk-off homer, that time by Max Muncy rather than Freddie Freeman) averaged 12.3 million viewers before 11 p.m. ET, then 14.1 million from 11 p.m.-2:10 a.m. ET, a change from what some expect in terms of people going to bed. (Having a Pacific Time team perhaps helps there, with some in that time zone tuning in to see what's going on after finding out the game was still on and counteracting easterners who went to bed.) And its final hour actually wasn't rated because Fox stopped airing national ads for it. So the exact picture of how many stayed up for the finale isn't clear.

NBA: Western Conference Semifinals Game 3, 2019: Portland Trail Blazers 140, Denver Nuggets 137 (4 OT, ESPN): One of the two longest playoff games in NBA history (the other one was a Boston Celtics-Syracuse Nationals clash in 1953, which doesn't have easily-obtainable TV ratings), this one averaged 4.1 million viewers. That rose five percent year over year from a comparable game, but was down 26 percent from a comparable game two years before. CJ McCollum and Jamal Murray had 41 and 34 points respectively for the Blazers and Nuggets, while Nikola Jokić had 33 points, 18 rebounds, and 14 assists in a losing effort. The Blazers would win that series, but fall to the Warriors in the conference finals, and Golden State would go on to lose to the Raptors in the FInals.

NBA: Finals Game 3, 1993: Phoenix Suns 129, Chicago Bulls 121 (3 OT, NBC): While slightly shorter and much longer ago, this one's worth mentioning for the similar championship stakes to Monday's game. An individual viewership number for it doesn't seem easy to find, but it averaged 13.6 million households, the lowest of that series. (The Bulls' series-clinching win in Game 6 averaged 32.1 million viewers.) Dan Majerle had 28 points for the Suns, while Charles Barkley had 24 points and 19 rebounds; Michael Jordan had 44 points, nine rebounds and six assists for the Bulls in a losing cause.

NHL: Eastern Conference Quarterfinals Game 1, 2020: Columbus Blue Jackets 2, Tampa Bay Lightning 3 (5 OT, NBCSN): This is the fourth-longest NHL game ever, and the first on that list since 2000. It averaged 755,000 U.S. viewers including streaming across six hours. Of course, it has some extremely strange caveats: it was played in a bubble in Toronto before no live fans due to COVID-19 concerns, and it started at 3 p.m. in the afternoon. Thus, it's maybe not super surprising that this one actually gained audience as it went on, averaging 957,000 viewers for its four hours of overtime, pulling in 1.27 million during the final two hours, and peaking at 1.85 million shortly before it ended. Brayden Point scored two goals in this one for the Lightning, including the game-winner.

Bonus: CFB regular season, 2018: Texas A&M 74, LSU 72 (7 OT, SECN): This one can't really be discussed from a ratings perspective, as it aired on SEC Network, but it remains one of the wildest college football games ever, and we do like going beyond the Big 4 here. And this one had the most tangible business impact of any of these games, causing the NCAA to change its overtime rules. It also has one of the wildest box scores you'll ever see, including LSU's Joe Burrow throwing for 270 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for 100 yards and three more, while A&M's Kellen Mond threw for 287 yards and six touchdowns and Trayveon Williams ran for 198 yards and two scores. And while the viewership numbers aren't available thanks to it airing on SECN, this one definitely seemed to pick up viewers as it went on, boosted by social media discussions like those on like College Football Twitter.

(Of note, we didn't mention the NFL here because its longest game, a Chiefs-Dolphins playoff clash in 1971, only went to double overtime and 80 minutes of game length. While that's remarkable in its own right, it's well short of the marathons we're talking about.)

Overall takeaways: There doesn't seem to be one clear trend in terms of how marathon games perform in the ratings. In some cases, these long games have garnered more and more audience as they've gone on, but others have lost viewers as it's gotten late. The Dodgers-Red Sox Game 3 from seven years ago seems the most analogous, though. The way that one gained audience over time seems at least somewhat promising for ratings here, and this series as a whole has some merits for ratings, but how late this one ran seems far from ideal. It will be interesting to see how the Game 3 ratings stack up in the end, and what impact that marathon game has on the way the rest of this series plays out.

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