Variety is reporting game three of the 2008 World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies averaged 9.8 million:

Fox can’t catch a break with this year’s World Series, with Saturday’s lengthy rain delay significantly cutting into the audience for Game 3.

Once the tarps were removed from the field and action began, it was about 10 p.m. in the East. And the lengthy game — won by the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-4 — didn’t end until about 1:45 a.m. on Sunday.

Result was that an average estimated audience of 9.8 million watched the game, making it among the least-watched World Series contests on record, according to preliminary Nielsen estimates. This Fall Classic was already off to a slow start, with the opening two games averaging 13.7 million viewers — good by today’s primetime standards, but off nearly 20% from last year.  Read the rest via Variety.

Variety is being generous!  9.8 million wouldn’t be among the lowest, it would be the lowest — at least the lowest in the modern era, and certainly the lowest going back the almost forty years I have game by game viewer data for.  Still, given the Saturday night and the lengthy rain delay, that’s actually a little bit better than I would’ve figured.