Who was the bigger winner last night: the Chicago Cubs or Fox Sports?
OK, it was the Cubs, but let us make a case for those who pay for the World Series rights. Game 7 of the 2016 Fall Classic was the most-watched baseball game in 25 years, scoring a massive 40.045 million total viewers. In households, the number was a towering 21.8 rating/37 share. Those figures are up 70 percent (total viewers) and 58 percent (household rating) versus 2014’s World Series Game 7 (San Francisco Giants-Kansas City Royals).
The previously referenced Game 7 of the 1991 World Series between the Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins put up an incredible 50.3 million total viewers — that’s still the most-watched baseball telecast in Fox Sports’ history.
Read all about broadcast primetime’s fast national TV ratings here, and Game 7’s overnight numbers here. The ring-clinching Chicago Cubs victory crushed ABC’s 50th annual CMA Awards, sending the country music celebration crashing to all-time lows.
The win over the Cleveland Indians gave the Chicago squad its first Major League Baseball championship in 108 years. The dramatic series saw the Cubs coming back from being 3-1 games down before they pulled off a Game 5 win in Chicago Sunday night and followed it up taking Game 6 in Cleveland.
Wednesday’s instant classic contest ran way past prime’s 11 p.m. ET cutoff, finally ending at 12:47 a.m. ET.