The year after Fox Sports signed a long term contract (through 2010) they were greeted with the ratings during the 2000 World Series. Fox Sports President Ed Goren commented, "There's no question the viewership never built. Normally, through a Series, it builds from game one to a game two, from a game two to a game three. We would have liked to have seen higher numbers, but they are respectable in today's world."

The Associated Press defines a"rating" as the percentage of TV households in the United States watching a broadcast and each national point represents 1,114,000 homes in 2006 (each year the number changes: in 2003 it was 1,084,000; in 2002 it was 1,067,000; in 2001 it was 1,055,000; in 1999 it was 1,008,000). A "share" is the percentage watching a program among those households with televisions on at the time.

Did you know that during the 2000 Subway Series, 61% of the televisions in New York watched Game 5? Did you know that the next thirty largest television markets, during that same exact viewing period, registered double digit percentage losses compared to the market in New York City?