Despite facing the highest-profile team in America’s most popular sport, the World Series scored one of its best numbers in years Sunday night.
Game 5 of the Indians/Cubs World Series had a 15.3 overnight rating on FOX Sunday night, up 31% from Royals/Mets last year (11.7), up 87% from Royals/Giants in 2014 (8.2), and the highest for any Major League Baseball game since Game 7 of the 2011 Rangers/Cardinals Fall Classic (16.3).
The Cubs’ win surpassed the most recent Game 7 of the World Series, Giants/Royals in 2014 (15.2). Excluding Game 7s, it scored the highest MLB overnight since Phillies/Yankees Game 6 in 2009 (15.5).
The 15.3 is also the highest for Game 5 of the World Series since Yankees/Marlins in 2003 (15.4). All five games of the series have hit a multi-year high in the metered markets.
Head-to-head, Game 5 easily topped Eagles/Cowboys on NBC’s Sunday Night Football (11.6), the first time since 2013 that the World Series has topped SNF in the metered markets. In addition to the other superlatives, the 15.3 is the highest for a World Series game on a Sunday night since Yankees/Phillies Game 4 in 2009 (15.6) — the last year that the NFL did not schedule SNF opposite the World Series.
Overall, Game 5 was the top rated sporting event of the weekend — marking the first time in at least a decade that baseball has been the top draw on an NFL Sunday. It is also the first time in at least a decade that the World Series has built on its NFL lead-in, growing 4% over the Packers/Falcons game that preceded it (14.7).
Locally, Game 5 had a series-high 48.6 in Cleveland. Ratings for Marlins/Indians in 1997 were not available. The 48.6 exceeds all-but-one of the Cavaliers’ 17 NBA Finals games, behind only Game 3 of the 2015 series (49.0). Game 5 also hit a series-high in Chicago with a 42.8, surpassing all four of the White Sox’ 2005 World Series games to rank as the highest MLB rating in the market since Game 7 of the 2003 Marlins/Cubs NLCS (47.1).
(Sun. numbers via Austin Karp/Twitter)
