Who will win Game 7 of the World Series? Fox Sports – Chicago Tribune
Not even Fox analyst Pete Rose, whose latest bad prediction was that the Indians would beat the Cubs on Tuesday to end the World Series, could get the outcome of Wednesday’s Game 7 wrong.
The winner will be Fox Sports. It already is.
The Cubs, who extended the World Series to one final showdown, might end their 108-year streak without a World Series title. The Indians, whose three games-to-one evaporated in the best-of-seven contest, might win their first title in 68 years.
At Fox, however, it’s already champagne and T-shirt time. The network has been basking in unusually high ratings for this matchup of historically snakebit franchises, anyway, and now it gets a grand finale.
“Yeah, it’s every kid’s dream,” the Cubs’ Addison Russell told Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal after the 9-3 Game 6 victory Tuesday that kept the Cubs and the the World Series alive. “I mean, it all comes down to Game 7. We’re excited.”
Not just ballplayers grow up fantasizing about this scenario.
Every kid who grows up to be a television executive does, too.
One more night of ads, an audience bolstered by knowing everything is on the line, and what has been a great draw so far.
“This is not a baseball story,” Alex Rodriguez, the former New York Yankees star working as an analyst for Fox this postseason, said in an interview. “This is a sports story, and it transcends generations.”
Early estimates subject to adjustment indicate Game 6 attracted 21.78 million viewers nationally. That’s not as many as watched Sunday’s Game 5, but Tuesday’s number almost certainly would have higher had the three hour, 29-minute game been closer.
Nationally the audience peaked with Russell’s third-inning grand slam, which put the Cubs up 7-0.
Locally in the Chicago market, the audience wavered but peaked at the end, averaging a 40.2 household rating, which translates to 40.2 percent of area homes or about 1.39 million households. That’s down from the 42.8 household rating Game 5 enjoyed here.
The early overnight estimate of metered markets, subject to adjustment, had Game 6 with the highest ratings for a Game 6 since 2009, the final game of a New York Yankees-Philadelphia Phillies featuring two of the nation’s four biggest TV markets.
Chicago is the No. 3 market and Cleveland-Akron is No. 19. But the Cubs have a national following cultivated by years of their games on cable television.
The fact the Cubs had gone 71 years without a World Series appearance till now and that they and the Indians have gone a combined 176 years without a title almost certainly contributes to the interest among non-traditional fans.
The early overnight number for the Cubs and Indians Tuesday represented a 66 percent improvement over the last World Series Game 6 played, the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals in 2014.
Through five games, it already was the most-watched World Series since the Boston Red Sox snapped their 86-year championship drought by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004.
In the Chicago market, the Cubs’ World Series has been racking up numbers comparable to 2005, when the White Sox won their first World Series in 88 years by sweeping the Houston Astros.
“It is a different vibe,” former White Sox star-turned-Fox analyst Frank Thomas said in an interview. “The energy was unbelievable in 2005, but this is larger. … You’ve got people around the country pulling for the Cubs.”
Game 7 looks to amplify all of that.
In the ratings for the week ending Sunday night, released Wednesday, the first five games of the Cubs-Indians World Series accounted for five of the six most-watched shows on television.
The Philadelphia-Dallas “Sunday Night Football” telecast broke through at No. 4 and that was trounced by Game 5 of the World Series.
The NFL is normally invulnerable as a TV draw, but the combination an overall ratings decline this season and the appeal of this baseball matchup exacted a toll.
Sunday’s Game 5 of the Cubs and Indians from Wrigley Field was the week’s most watched program with 23.6 million viewers despite 18 million watching the Cowboys win in overtime on NBC.
Game 3 and Game 1 each attracted 19.4 million viewers, followed by Game 2 (17.4 million) and Game 4 (16.7 million).
For comparison’s sake, CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory” was the week’s most-watched entertainment program with 14.3 million viewers opposite Game 1, 5.1 million off its season average.
Now, with Game 7, it’s time for the Cubs and Indians — the two teams with the longest World Series title droughts — to finally resolve their ultimate cliffhanger on Fox.
philrosenthal@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @phil_rosenthal
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