The postponement that pushed Game 6 of the ALCS back to Sunday night turned out to be a bad break for NBC.

The Giants-Cardinals Sunday night game was crushed in the New York ratings by the Yankees’ 5-2 ALCS-clinching win over the Angels. The ALCS game on FOX did a 26.4 rating and a 40 share in New York compared to a 9.3/14 for the Giants’ 24-17 loss to the Cardinals.

“Our ratings last night were spectacular,” commissioner Bud Selig said Monday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “To get a 26.4 in New York while the Giants got a 9.3 on ’Sunday Night Football’ is stunning.”

The figures were 20.6 and 31 in the Philadelphia market.

The Giants other Sunday night game this season — against the Cowboys on Sept. 20 — by comparison did a 19.3 rating in New York. It also had intense competion with the Emmys being broadcast on the same night.

Nationally, the entire ALCS averaged a 6.5/12, up 35 percent from the 4.8/8 for the five-game Phillies-Dodgers NLCS on the network last year.

The NFL does not have a Sunday night game next week with Game 4 of the World Series between the Yankees and Phillies scheduled to be played that night.

With AP