It was a once in a lifetime World Series and it ended up attracting huge viewership. It ended in what will go down as one of the greatest baseball games ever played. The 2016 Chicago Cubs closed the book on the franchise’s 108-year championship drought with a thrilling 8-7, extra-inning victory over the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 of the World Series, Wednesday night on FOX.
The Cubs’ finally removing the oversized monkey from their backs attracted the highest ratings for a World Series since the Boston Red Sox did the same 12 years ago.
The BoSox ended an 86 year drought in the Fall Classic, and you cant help but draw some parallels here.
More on the World Series ratings data via FOX Sports.
The World Series-clinching triumph placed an emphatic exclamation point on a playoff run that captivated the nation and marked the summit of a memorable Major League Baseball postseason that produced impressive audience figures through each of its four rounds. According to data released by Nielsen Media Research, World Series Game 7 delivered a massive 21.8/37 household rating/share with 40.045 million viewers.
Remarkably, last night’s telecast is now the most-watched baseball game of any kind since Game 7 of the 1991 World Series between the Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins (50.3 million viewers) and ranks as the most-watched baseball telecast in FOX Sports’ history
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Yep, the most watched baseball game in a quarter-century was last night. And what a game it truly was. WOW!
Overall, these games are getting huge numbers- 18, 19, 20 million viewers a piece. That’s way better than Monday Night NFL Football and on par with Sunday Night NFL Football.
It also comes at a time when the NFL is being a huge decline in ratings. That doesn’t mean, however, that baseball will catch up or even surpass football as the most popular sport in America.
This is a generational event World Series, and the NFL is just undergoing a hiccup.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.