Wednesday night’s dramatic Game 7 of the World Series garnered impressive ratings for Fox, which projected the telecast to be the largest it’s had in prime time since January 2007, and WFLD-TV, which said 3,217,000 people in the Chicago area watched the game.
The broadcast of Cubs’ 8-7 victory over the Cleveland Indians in 10 innings earned an overnight rating of 25.2, Fox said Thursday.
That made it the most-watched baseball game for the network since Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, a decisive game that featured the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks that yielded a 27.0.
Other than the presidential debates, the game was also the most-watched telecast since February’s Super Bowl 50, according to Fox. The rating was also a 66 percent improvement over the last Game 7 in a World Series, which pitted the San Francisco Giants against the Kansas City Royals in 2014.
WFLD said the game drew a record 51.5 rating in the Chicago market and a 72 share — meaning 72 percent of televisions in use in Chicago were tuned to the game. For some context, Super Bowl 50 had a 47.6 rating and 72 share.
In Cleveland, Game 7 had a 48.6 rating and a 69 share.
That national share was 40.
Overall, the series had a 14.9 rating and 25 share in markets metered by Nielsen — the highest-rated World Series since 2004’s series between the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals). It garnered 48 percent higher ratings than last year’s New York Mets-Kansas City Royals World Series.
