With this being the last week for MLB/NFL overlap in 2018, the ratings for the League Where They Play for Pay held its own against the World Series. CBS was up for its regional windows compared to last year, while NBC saw its ratings slightly increase from last year and pretty much declared a win in spite of losing head to head to Fox’s World Series Game 5.

Sunday Night Football, which had an enticing matchup of two division leaders, New Orleans and Minnesota, finished with a 9.7 overnight rating. NBC was quick to point out that it was up 3% in the overnight ratings compared to last year’s Pittsburgh at Detroit game, which was pitted against World Series Game 5 of Los Angeles-Houston.

Note how NBC spun the yarn on its numbers:

Saints-Vikings on NBC Sunday Night Football delivered 9.7/16 overnight against deciding Game 5 of World Series – UP 3% from last year’s Week 8 SNF game (9.4/15; Pitt-Det), which faced non-clinching World Series game — NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) October 29, 2018

NBC wanted to point out that up against the Red Sox-Dodgers clincher, this year’s game had stronger numbers, despite last year’s game, which went head to head against a NON-CLINCHING WORLD SERIES GAME. Instead of just saying it did better against last year’s game, it had to add in NON-CLINCHING WORLD SERIES GAME to prove a point. Why? Because NBC can.

As for CBS, it put up this simple slide to show how well it did in Week 8:

Going further, CBS said in a press release that this week’s slate of games gave it a boost from last year:

“THE NFL ON CBS’ coverage earned a 10.3/22 average household rating/share versus last year’s 9.1/18 in the metered markets. The day’s games were Denver-Kansas City, N.Y. Jets-Chicago, Cleveland-Pittsburgh, Baltimore-Carolina and Indianapolis-Oakland.”

As for Fox, the barnburner Green Bay at Los Angeles Rams contest was the highest-rated game of the week:

Overall, the NFL has to feel good about another strong week. CBS up, NBC up against the World Series despite losing head-to-head, and Fox gets good numbers for its late Sunday afternoon window.