Last night Fox chose to show the Yankee-Red Sox ALCS Game 2 on Ch. 5 and the NLCS Game 1 on Fox Sports Net simultaneously because historically more viewers are able to watch at night compared to the late afternoon when most people are still at work.

“The last time we aired an early League Championship game during the week was back in 2001, which was NLCS Game 1, Arizona-Atlanta and it did a 4.4 rating, which means that not too many people were home to see that game,” Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell said. “Since then, we have scheduled two games at the same time for the last three years simply because by making them available to the widest possible audience across the country more people will be at home to see them.”

The simultaneous AL and NLCS games scored a 12 rating in 2003 and a 10.2 in 2002.

Next Wednesday, if necessary, Fox will have Game 6 of the NLCS at 4 p.m. and Game 7 of the ALCS at 8:15 p.m. Bell said this scenario is different than last night’s because it is later in the series and would include a decisive ALCS Game 7.