A few closing thoughts on the 116th World Series.

To me the key metrics in looking at the World Series are always volume of games and how the Series rates relative to primetime entertainment.

This year’s average audience of 9.8 million for the World Series is +24% higher than the season-to-date audience for primetime’s #1 entertainment show (The Voice, 7.9m).

Obviously you’d prefer year-over-year growth, but it’s significant that in the 50 year primetime history of the World Series it’s rare for the Fall Classic to rate +24% higher than the #1 entertainment show.

Look back, for example, to the Dodgers last championship in 1988. That memorable series averaged a 23.9 rating, unimaginable in today’s environment. But it also rated -7% lower than that year’s #1 prime show (Cosby, 25.6).

By getting to Game 6, the World Series provided Fox with 23 hours of original primetime content at an audience considerably bigger than anything other than the NFL.

As a measure of baseball’s overall popularity, World Series ratings aren’t a very useful guide and haven’t been for many years.

Does anyone really believe that MLB as a whole became 55% more popular in 2016 than it was in 2015? Of course not. Chance plays a huge role in World Series ratings and in that year chance handed Fox the Cubs in 7.

The far more useful metric is regular season ratings across the regional sports networks, a sample of a huge number of games across every American MLB market. By that broader measure, MLB viewership was up slightly in 2020.

To me, RSN viewership and live attendance are far more instructive as measures of baseball’s overall popularity than a sample of 4-7 games in which luck plays a huge role in the matchup.

As long as the World Series continues to beat everything in Fall TV other than the NFL - which it will - it will remain a formidable player. That expectation is what allows us to invest enthusiastically in baseball for the long term.

110 days to pitchers and catchers.....