Fox wins big with Mets in the Series
The World Series begins next week and with it a ratings pot of gold for broadcaster Fox.
The New York Mets will play either the Toronto Blue Jays or the Kansas City Royals. Having the Mets in the World Series is great news for Fox.
“You’ve got the nation’s biggest media market covered,” said Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross.
The Cubs, he said, would have been good for ratings, too.
“If the Cubs had gotten in, you would have had people tuning in from around the country to see whether the Cubs could shake their 100-plus-year curse at being shut out of the World Series.”
Which team is in the other dugout next week — Toronto or Kansas City — will also have a big impact on ratings. The issue is less the size of each team’s market, and more that Canadian viewership doesn’t really count for U.S. broadcasters and their advertisers.
“Nielsen media doesn’t measure Canadian markets,” said Austin Karp, with SportsBusiness Daily. “So they wouldn’t even be getting that large Toronto market or any other Canadian markets. It won’t count in Fox’s number at all.”
But Karp said regardless of whether the Blue Jays beat the Royals or vice versa, the Mets still make this a winning series for Fox.
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