Fox’s November 5 slate of late-afternoon NFL telecasts set a new high mark for football telecasts this fall as the league continues to deliver big viewership numbers.

Fox's late Sunday NFL window, mostly featuring the Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game, averaged 27.13 million viewers, the most watched television event since Fox’s February Super Bowl LVII telecast, according to Nielsen TV numbers published by SportsMedia Watch. 

Also on Sunday, NBC’s Buffalo Bills-Cincinnati Bengals Sunday Night Football telecast came in second with 18.36 million viewers, followed by CBS’s early NFL window (14.53 million) and Fox’s early NFL window (11.45 million). 

CBS secured the top two most-watched college football games for the week, led by its November 4 LSU-Alabama telecast with 8.82 million, followed by the Missouri-Georgia game with 6.99 million. 

Three of Fox’s Arizona Diamondbacks-Texas Rangers World Series telecasts topped the list of non-football games for the week, led by the Game 5 series-clinching game won by the Rangers. Overall, the World Series finished as the least-watched Fall Classic ever, averaging 9.1 million viewers. 

The Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks have provided a solid World Series matchup, with two teams with loyal fanbases getting hot at the end of the season. 

National TV-wise, however, let's just say the World Series is lacking a national draw like the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers or Boston Red Sox. 

Also Read: After Resurgent Regular Season, MLB Is Seeing Its Playoffs Strike Out With TV Audiences

The first three games of the so-called Fall Classic have yielded the worst TV numbers in recorded history, with each game producing smaller audiences than the last one … and all of them falling behind what had previously been the all-time low-water mark, the 2020 Game 3 pandemic “bubble” matchup between the Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays, which was also on Fox. 

Consider these numbers (courtesy of Nielsen and Sports Media Watch):

Noted The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, “The Diamondbacks and Rangers are not national draws based on historic television data outside of when they are playing a team with broad appeal or a series going long (which is what Fox has to really hope for with this series).” 

The Rangers are up 2-1 over the Diamondbacks going into Tuesday night’s Game 4.

The aforementioned Sports Media Watch post has a robust history of recent-era World Series TV ratings. 

Last season’s matchup between the eventual World Series champion Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies averaged 11.76 million viewers and didn’t have a game that came close to dipping into the single digits, total audience-wise. 

Basebal’'s biggest event has had trouble in recent years competing with the juggernauts pro and college football, as well as the start of the NBA regular season.

As Sports Business Journal noted for context, the late-night Saturday college football game between Coach Deion Sanders’s media-darling Colorado Buffaloes and the Colorado State Rams back on September 16 averaged 9.3 million viewers. That was a regular-season game that finished after 2 a.m. on the East Coast. 

But it’s hard to believe the national pastime has lost all its luster in just the last few years. 

Just six years ago, Fox’s presentation of the 2017 World Series featuring the Astros cheating their way to a seven-game “victory” over the Dodgers averaged 18.78 million viewers, with Game 7 delivering 28.24 million watchers. 

Major League Baseball enjoyed a resurgent regular season, with overall linear TV viewership up 26% through the first three months of the 2023 campaign and full-season ballpark attendance having its biggest year-over-year spike ever (9.6%) to more than 70.7 million ticket buyers. 

With marquee teams including the Yankees, Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals not in the postseason, however, and the Dodgers bowing out early, numbers for the divisional and league championship series were off, leading to speculation that World Series numbers would be bad, too. 

Few, however, could have predicted they'd be this bad. 

Fox on Friday (October 27) takes the field for its coverage of baseball’s World Series, featuring a pair of surprise teams in the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers.

Fox hopes the series will continue the ratings momentum built by the League Championship Series, which averaged 5.19 million viewers across two seven-game series — up 6% from last year’s 4.8 million viewers. Game 7 of the Diamonbacks-Philadelphia Phillies National League Championship Series on October 24 averaged 8.9 million viewers across TBS and truTV, the most-watched game of either series.

Multichannel News caught up with Fox Sports lead Major League Baseball director Matt Gangl and president, insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill ahead of Game 1 to discuss Fox Sports’s strategy in producing this year’s Fall Classic.  

MCN: How will Fox Sports tailor its World Series coverage with two teams that are not particularly well-known to casual baseball fans?

Matt Gangl: I wouldn't say it changes our strategy, but maybe it changes a little bit from the point of how we cover the teams. The teams may not be as known across baseball as much as if you had the Dodgers or the Yankees in the World Series, but we're still covering baseball at a high level. A lot of fans embrace the underdog, and you have two teams that two seasons ago lost over 100 games and now are playing for the title. I think that gives a lot of fans of other teams a sense of hope moving forward that their team can someday end up in the World Series. The [Diamondbacks and Rangers] are playing their best baseball at the right time. They both started out hot in the first half of the season before faltering a little bit through the second half, but have fought their way to play for the biggest prize. Our job is to make sure that the teams and the players in the series become recognizable faces by telling their stories. Part of our task is trying to bring that to the average baseball viewer who may not know anything about them. 

MCN: Has Fox tempered viewership expectations given the lack of a big-market team? 

Mike Mulvihill: The approach for us from a business perspective doesn’t change much. We come to the World Series every year with the same expectations and hopes — that the games will outrate everything on television except the NFL, and that the series will go as long as possible. We root for volume more than we root for matchup, so if we can get to a Game 6, or Game 7, that's more important to us than whatever the matchup might be. We feel like what we’re signing up for is basically 20 hours of primetime TV that's going to rate at the level of the number one show on television outside of the NFL, whether it's Yankees-Dodgers, or Rangers-Dbacks. That expectation doesn’t change at all. 

MCN: Have this year’s rules changes forced you to alter how you produce the games this year, as opposed to prior World Series?

MG: It just makes everything more condensed, which is obviously great for the time and pace of the game. The pace will be quicker and there will be less dead time without guys constantly backing out of the [batter’s] box and pitchers wandering around the mound. It’s made us a little more focused on maybe getting to replays a little sooner because you can't get as much in due to the pace of the game. For me, it’s about getting the best three or four shots in. So it's about trying to be a little more selective and trying to make sure there's a little sense of urgency getting to certain things as well. 

MCN: Will Fox look to feature any new technological wrinkles in its World Series coverage? 

MG: We have two new technical things. We’ll feature the umpire cam during the series — we’ve had it during our regular-season telecasts, but this will be the first time we’ve had in the World Series. It will give people a front-row view of what it’s like to face pitching in the 2020s. The other thing is that we are going to do is something we did in the All-Star game and feature a live drone inside the stadium that can be in over the field during dead-ball moments. When there is a stoppage in play, whether that's during a home run, the end of a half inning or a pitching change, we'll have a drone that would be over the field that can follow the players as they run around the bases for a home run and those types of things.

The lineup of live TV sports events for the last weekend in October starts on the baseball diamond with Fox’s coverage of the World Series. 

Fox on Saturday will air Game 2 of the Fall Classic between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers. Both teams advanced to the World Series earlier this week after beating their respective League Championship Series opponents in seven games. 

On Saturday, college football’s top-ranked Georgia faces Florida on CBS; No. 3 Ohio State battles Wisconsin on NBC; fourth-ranked Florida State meets Wake Forest on ABC, and No. 5 Washington plays Stanford on FS1.

Other games involving top 10-ranked teams include No. 6 Oklahoma-Kansas (Fox), No. 7 Texas-BYU (ABC) No. 8 Oregon-Utah (Fox), and No. 10 Penn State-Indiana (CBS).

Sunday’s NFL schedule features regional afternoon games on CBS and Fox, as well as NBC’s Sunday Night Football content between the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Chargers. 

In rugby action, The Rugby World Cup final takes place Saturday on Peacock and CNBC with New Zealand battling South Africa, while on the soccer field, live weekend coverage of Premier League action runs on NBC, USA Network and Peacock.

In the squared ring, ESPN on Saturday will offer a pay-per-view “crossover” boxing event featuring World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Tyson Fury facing former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. 

The NASCAR Cup Series continues on Sunday with the Xfinity 500 race on NBC, while ESPN will televise the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix race. 

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of October 31 through November 6, highlighting the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio's Inscape, and network and show TV ad impressions insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 19 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Sports continue to reign supreme, taking four of the top five spots for the most-watched programming during the week. NFL games accounted for 5.56% of minutes watched, down slightly from the previous week's 5.89%. On the other hand, college football saw an increase in watch-time, up to 4.70% from 3.95% previously.

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• After six games, the Houston Astros defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, which accounted for 3.12% of watch-time during the week.
• Chicago P.D. makes a notable jump up the chart, moving to No. 12 from No. 23, fueled by reruns on ION and USA Network, as well as a new episode that premiered on NBC on Nov. 2.
• Fox News programs America's Newsroom and America Reports both move slightly up the chart, to No. 14 and No. 16, respectively.
• Week-over-week newcomers include Chicago Fire (0.39%) and The First 48 (0.39%), shifting into the No. 20 and No. 24 chart positions, respectively.

On the network side of things, CBS is in first place, thanks in part to NFL and college football, with 9.04% of minutes watched (up from 7.32% the previous week). 

Additional insights around the most-watched networks from October 31 through November 6:

• Fox, benefiting primarily from the World Series, edges out NBC to take second place with 8.01% of watch-time.
• Although Fox News Channel, ESPN and Hallmark Channel all retain their chart positions week-over-week, each saw a slight uptick in minutes watched.
• Newcomers that didn't appear on the previous week's ranking include ESPN2, up from No. 27 to No. 22, and Paramount Network, up to No. 23 from No. 38.
• Paramount's notable jump came from a Yellowstone marathon over the weekend — the network's hit show, which returns for season five on November 13 — accounted for over 40% of Paramount Network's total watch-time for the week.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the real-time TV measurement company. Rankings are by share of TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

The NFL remains in first place, but saw a slight decrease in share of TV ad impressions, to 11.57% from 12.29% the previous week. College football is steady at No. 2 with an impressions share of 7.62%.

More insights about the top programs by TV ad impressions:

• Although the World Series stays in third place week-over-week, it saw a notable increase in share of TV ad impressions (up to 5.41% from 3.09% previously), with a nearly 75% jump in total TV impressions compared to the week before.
• The Voice, which premiered two of its three "The Knockouts" episodes during the week, moves into eleventh place with 1.02% share of impressions, up from 0.94% last time.
• ABC World News Tonight with David Muir moves up one place, from No. 18 to No. 17 (from 0.55% share of impressions to 0.87%), while Fox & Friends remains in 10th but with a slight impressions increase (from 1.06% to 1.07%).
• Daytime soap opera General Hospital jumps up the ranking to No. 18 from No. 22 previously, increasing its share of impressions from 0.70% to 0.80%.

CBS takes first place in the network ranking, with a week-over-week increase in TV ad impressions share — up to 17.71% from 14.92%. NBC takes second place, with impressions fueled by NFL games, Today and The Voice.

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions share:

• ABC moves into third place, albeit with a slight week-over-week decrease in impressions (down to 10.84% from 11.55% previously).
• Discovery and The CW both have notable upward movement, from No. 22 to No. 17 and from No. 23 to No. 18, respectively. Street Outlaws, Gold Rush and Moonshiners delivered top impression counts for Discovery, while The CW benefited from Stargirl, Walker and Family Feud.
• Food Network moves up the chart from No. 24 to No. 20, with seasonal programming including Holiday Wars, Halloween Baking Championship and Christmas Cookie Challenge generating top impression counts.
• With a 0.44% share of impressions, History Channel was the sole week-over-week newcomer, landing at No. 24 from its previous place at No. 26.

Advertisers spent an estimated $194.4 million on commercials during the World Series on Fox, down 9.1% from last year’s fall classic, according to new figures from iSpot.tv.

This year’s World Series, with the Houston Astros beating the Philadelphia Phillies, went the same six games as last year’s series, but viewership was down, with the broadcasts delivering a total of 5.87 billion impressions, down 7.7% from last year.

There were 731 commercials during the 2022 World Series, nearly the same as in the 2021 series.

Also: Spanish-Language World Cup Ads Nearly Sold Out: NBCU

The top World Series advertisers were Samsung Mobile, which spent $7.7 million and aired 36 more spots than a year ago.

Other top advertisers included GEICO, T-Mobile, Indeed, Chevrolet, Capital One Credit Cards and Pfizer, a new World Series sponsor, spending about $5 million.

The most seen spots were from Samsung Mobile, Chevrolet and Pfizer's Comirnaty.

Over the course of all of the Major League Baseball playoffs, advertisers spent about $329.1 million, down 7.1% from last season. In addition to Fox, games aired on Warner Bros. Discovery’s TBS.

Impressions were down 6.4%, despite more teams being in this year’s playoffs.

The top spenders on post-season baseball were GEICO at $12.3 million, T-Mobile at $10.3 million, Samsung Mobile at $8.7 million, Indeed at $8.7 million and Taco Bell at $7.8 million.  ■

The first weekend of November kicks off with a busy lineup of live TV sports events,  beginning with the conclusion of Major League Baseball's World Series.

The Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday will meet in Game 6 of the World Series on Fox, with the Astros leading three games to two and looking to close out the Phillies. If the Phillies win, it sets up a winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday, also on Fox.

On the soccer field, Fox on Saturday will televise the Major League Soccer Cup game between the Philadelphia Union and Los Angeles FC. On the Premier League front, Peacock, USA Network and NBC will offer a combined 10 live telecasts over the weekend.

Saturday kicks off a big weekend for college football as a number of ranked teams face each other as the sport gets closer to choosing its playoff-bound teams.

Top-ranked Tennessee battles No. 3 Georgia in a major Southeastern Conference matchup on CBS, while No. 2 Ohio State travels to face Northwestern in a Big Ten shootout on ABC. Also, fourth-ranked Clemson faces the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame on NBC and No. 5 Michigan battles Rutgers on Big Ten Network.

Also: Report: Live Sports May Not Be That Big a Driver of Pay TV Subscriptions

Other ranked teams in action include No. 6 Alabama-No. 10 LSU (ESPN), No. 7 TCU-Texas Tech (Fox), No. 8 Oregon-Colorado (ESPN), and No. 9 USC-Cal (ESPN).

On Sunday, week nine of the NFL season will feature regional coverage on Fox and CBS, as well as NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecast between the Tennessee Titans and the Kansas City Chiefs.

In the ring, Showtime will televise a fight card featuring super middleweight champion David Morrell Jr. defending his title against Aidos Yerbossynuly. Also, DAZN will feature a light heavyweight title matchup between champion Dmitry Bivol and Gilberto Ramirez.

On Sunday NBC will provide live coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship, while CBSSN will offer coverage of the Professional Bull Riders’ Team Series Championship. ■ 

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of October 24-30, highlighting the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio's Inscape, and network and show TV ad impressions insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio's TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 19 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Football season is in full swing and nothing can unseat the NFL when it comes to viewership: Games accounted for 5.89% of all minutes watched from October 24-30, up slightly from the previous week's 5.34%.

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• College football moves up a notch to second place from third the previous week, increasing its share of watch-time from 3.48% to 3.95%.
• The 2022 World Series takes third place over NBA games, with 1.35% and 1.10% of minutes watch, respectively.
• Two and a Half Men makes a notable jump up the chart, moving to No. 18 from No. 24 the previous week, fueled by reruns across TV Land, Paramount Network and IFC.
• Week-over-week newcomers include NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (0.37%) and Hannity (0.36%), moving into the No. 24 and No. 25 chart positions, respectively.

With assists from NFL games, the World Series and college football, Fox scores a home run as the top network with 8.64% of minutes watched, unseating CBS, which had taken first place for weeks. 

Additional insights around the most-watched networks from October 24-30:

• There's incremental movement within the middle ranks compared to the previous week, with Hallmark Channel (2.58% of minutes watched), Ion (1.82%) and HGTV (1.64%), among others, rising to new heights.
• Speaking of Hallmark, the network continues its early Christmas obsession, with movies including Jolly Good Christmas, A Cozy Christmas Inn and Ghosts of Christmas Always among its top programming for the week. And that's not all: Sister network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries catapults into the ranking at No. 19 (1.09% of watch-time), also fueled by holiday content.
• Cable news saw a week-over-week increase, with MSNBC moving into 10th place from No. 13 with 1.50% of minutes watched, and CNN jumping from No. 15 to No. 11 (1.44%).
• Discovery was another week-over-week newcomer, capturing 0.86% of watch-time and landing at No. 25.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the real-time TV measurement company. Rankings are by share of TV ad impressions, for new episodes only.

Once again the NFL takes first place with a 12.29% share of TV ad impressions, an increase from the previous week's 10.09%. College football marches up the field with an impressions SOV of 7.94%, while the MLB World Series takes third place (3.09%). 

More insights about the top programs by TV ad impressions:

• Good Morning America overtakes the NBA for fourth place, with 1.48% and 1.46% share of impressions, respectively.
• With Election Day rapidly approaching, various news programs saw week-over-week increases, including Fox & Friends (up from 0.90% share of impressions to 1.60%), NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt (from 0.77% to 0.95%), ABC World News Tonight With David Muir (from 0.55% to 0.77%), Jesse Watters Primetime (from 0.63% to 0.71%) and America Reports, which wasn’t on the previous week’s ranking but comes in at No. 25 with 0.60% share of impressions, up from 0.52%.
• Thanks to back-to-back nights of episodes, Bachelor in Paradise moves up the ranking from No. 18 to No. 17, with a 0.79% share of TV ad impressions.
• Programs maintaining their ranking spot week-over-week but seeing an increase in share of impressions include Today (up from 1.31% to 1.35%), SportsCenter (from 1.23% to 1.31%), The Price Is Right (from 1.11% to1.27%) and The Young and the Restless (from 1.04% to 1.10%).

CBS once again takes first place in our top-networks-by-impressions ranking, with a slight week-over-week increase in TV ad impression share -- up to 14.92% from 14.36%. Fox jumps into second place with a nearly 30% increase in total impressions week-over-week, thanks in part to the 2022 World Series. 

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions:

• NBC scored a slightly higher share of TV ad impressions than ABC -- 11.55% vs. 11.41% -- with over a quarter of its total impressions coming from NFL games. ABC was buoyed by college football, which accounted for 18% of the network’s total impressions.
• Spanish-language networks Univision, Telemundo and UniMás all rise up the ranking with week-over-week share of impressions increases, with Telemundo having the largest (from 1.40% to 2.31%).
• The CW arrives in our ranking at No. 23 (up from No. 27 previously) with All American, Stargirl and All American: Homecoming as its top three impressions-driving shows.
• SEC Network was another week-over-week newcomer, landing at No. 19 with 0.59% impressions share, up from 0.36% the previous week.

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Nov. 1-7, showcasing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 17 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

The National Football League is responsible for the most-watched programming on TV once again, with 5.82% of minutes watched during the week of Nov. 1-7. However, the bigger story this week is Paramount Network’s Yellowstone, which nabs 1.14% of watch-time via its season four premiere.

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• College football jumps back up to No. 2, with 3.89% of minutes watched (up from 3.76% the previous week).
• The Atlanta Braves’ World Series-clinching win in game six was enough to take home 0.98% of watch-time on the week, despite it being just one game.
• Week-over-week, MTV’s Ridiculousness jumps from No. 22 to No. 12 by minutes watched, while HGTV’s Love It or List It rockets up from No. 25 to No. 13.
• Beyond Yellowstone, Two and a Half Men and America Reports With John Roberts & Sandra Smith are the other week-over-week newcomers among the 25 most-watched programs.

Also: Fall 2021 TV Premiere Dates

Fox stays atop the network rankings by minutes watched, with 8.60% of watch-time, largely thanks to live sports (NFL, college football and the decisive sixth game of the World Series).

More insights around the most-watched networks during the week:

• Paramount Network flies from No. 42 to No. 11 thanks to the aforementioned Yellowstone season-four premiere.
• There are no changes among the top 10, with the order staying exactly the same week-over-week.
• Hallmark Movies & Mysteries can thank holiday movies for more minutes watched, netting 1.29% from Nov. 1-7 (up from 1.13% the previous week).
• Food Network jumps one spot week-over-week, while increasing watch-time from 1.19% to 1.34% as the network starts leaning into more holiday-themed programming.

Also: Fox Is Selling 2023 Super Bowl Spots as Sports Ad Market Heats Up

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

The NFL reigns supreme yet again with nearly 7.0 billion TV ad impressions for the week of Nov. 1-7. Despite just one game (the Braves’ game six win) appearing on TV during the week, the World Series still places third, with nearly 1.6 billion impressions.

More data about the top programs by TV ad impressions during the week:

• A weekend full of ranked upsets led to college football TV ad impressions increasing to 4.3 billion on the week (No. 2 among all programming).
• La Casa de los Famosos continues to be a hit on Telemundo, as the Spanish-language Celebrity Big Brother is No. 25 by impressions on the week, with over 319 million.
• Live National Basketball Association games move up from No. 9 to No. 7 by impressions—one of four sports programs among the top seven.
• On the week, three different Fox News shows appear in the top 25: Fox & Friends (No. 14), America's Newsroom With Bill Hemmer & Dana Perino (No. 15) and The Five (No. 22).

Fox and CBS swap places atop this week’s ad-impressions-by-network ranking. While both networks aired plenty of football over the weekend, CBS takes the lead thanks in part to The Young and the Restless and The Price Is Right.

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions from Nov. 1-7:

• With just one World Series game on the week, Fox falls to No. 2, with over 8 billion TV ad impressions.
• Cable news networks Fox News (4.4 billion), MSNBC (1.9 billion) and CNN (1.6 billion) are all top 10 by impressions on the week.
• USA Network moves into the top 25 (at No. 25) by impressions as parent company Comcast starts moving NBC Sports Network content to USA in preparation for shuttering NBCSN at the end of the year.
• The CW moves up from No. 22 to No. 17 week-over-week, with Tamron Hall contributing over 13% of all impressions for the network.

B+C has partnered with always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv to bring you a weekly chart we call Promo Mojo: exclusive data showing the top five TV promos ranked by ad impressions. Our data covers the seven-day period through Oct. 31.

A Fox spot for the 2021 World Series is No. 1. Fox also takes second place to promote the Fox Weather app — the mobile home of the new Fox Weather streaming service — and fourth place to generate excitement for 9-1-1.

Rounding out the chart: Hallmark Channel celebrates Coyote Creek Christmas in third, and ABC sings the praises of new musical drama Queens in fifth.

Notably, the Queens spot has the week’s highest iSpot Attention Index (113), meaning viewers were on average highly likely to watch it all the way through (vs. interrupting it by changing the channel, pulling up the guide, fast-forwarding or turning off the TV).

Also Read: Fall 2021 Premiere Dates

1) 2021 World Series, Fox

Impressions: 380,812,261

Interruption Rate: 0.95%

Attention Index: 89 (11% more interruptions than avg.)

Imp. Types: National 93%, Local 6%, VOD/OTT 1%

In-network Value: $5,758,310

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $0.00

2) Fox Weather app, Fox

Impressions: 271,822,163

Interruption Rate: 1.87%

Attention Index: 95 (5% more interruptions than avg.)

Imp. Types: National 96%, Local 3%, VOD/OTT 1%

In-network Value: $3,286,100

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $44,495

3) Coyote Creek Christmas, Hallmark Channel

Impressions: 264,785,306

Interruption Rate: 6.13%

Attention Index: 108 (8% fewer interruptions than avg.)

Imp. Types: National 100%, Local 0%, VOD/OTT 0%

In-network Value: $1,749,746

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $0.00

4) 9-1-1, Fox

Impressions: 255,984,283

Interruption Rate: 1.57%

Attention Index: 77 (23% more interruptions than avg.)

Imp. Types: National 91%, Local 7%, VOD/OTT 2%

In-network Value: $3,866,183

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $349,605

5) Queens, ABC

Impressions: 249,830,481

Interruption Rate: 1.27%

Attention Index: 113 (13% fewer interruptions than avg.)

Imp. Types: National 87%, Local 10%, VOD/OTT 3%

In-network Value: $1,563,843

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $454,904

* Data provided by iSpot.tv, TV Ad Measurement for Disruptive Brands *

Impressions: The total impressions within all U.S. households including National Linear (Live & Time-shifted), VOD plus OTT, and Local.

Attention Score: Measures the propensity of consumers to interrupt an ad play on TV. The higher the score, the more complete views. Actions that interrupt an ad play include changing the channel, pulling up the guide, fast-forwarding or turning off the TV.

Attention Index: Represents the Attention of a specific creative or program placement vs. the average in its respective industry. The average is represented by a score of 100, and the total index range is from 0 through 200. For example, an attention index of 125 means that there are 25% fewer interrupted ad plays compared to the average.

Impression Types: Impression types tracked include National (Live + Time-shifted), Local, VOD & OTT. See below for further details.

In-Network Value: Estimated media value of in-network promos.

Out-of-Network Spend: The estimated amount spent on TV airing time for this promo's spots during a given date range.

National: Live: A national promo which was viewed during live linear television broadcast or same day, via DVR or on-demand.

Local: A promo that was aired during a local ad break slot.

VOD: This includes promos that run in on-demand content past three days (i.e. do not contain the linear promo load).

OTT: On-demand streaming content (i.e. Hulu, Roku, Fire TV Stick, Chromecast).

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Oct. 25-31, showcasing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 17 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Once again, the National Football League is behind the most-watched programming on TV, with NFL games climbing to 6.01% of minutes watched during the week of Oct. 25-31 (up from 5.59% the previous week). Despite the NFL claiming the No. 1 spot in our ranking yet again, the World Series is the top story, with 3.85% of watch-time on just five games. 

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• College football is No. 3 behind the NFL and World Series, with 3.76% of minutes watched.
• Procedurals make up six of the top 20 programs by watch-time, with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (No. 4), Chicago P.D. (No. 9), NCIS (No. 11), Gunsmoke (No. 12), Blue Bloods (No. 17), and Chicago Fire (No. 19) all appearing.
• Syndicated The Big Bang Theory episodes are No. 18. The show didn’t appear among the 50 most-watched the previous week.
• Love It or List It leaps from No. 41 to No. 25 week-over-week, with 0.35% of minutes watched.

Also: Fall 2021 TV Premiere Dates

Fox is new atop the network rankings by minutes watched, tallying 11.94% of watch-time — up nearly double from 5.65% the previous week. The network enjoys not only its usual slate of NFL and college football matchups, but also five World Series games from Oct. 25-31.

More insights around the most-watched networks during the week:

• NBC remains No. 2 by watch-time thanks in part to a Saturday Notre Dame football game and Sunday night’s Dallas Cowboys game.
• As Hallmark Channel leans into holiday shows and movies, it climbs to No. 7 by minutes watched, with 2.70% of watch-time. Sister network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries sees a similar leap, rising from No. 28 to No. 19 with the same programming strategy.
• USA Network leaps from No. 20 to No. 16 by minutes watched, on the back of WWE Monday Night Raw.
• Fox, NBC, CBS and ABC still make up a large portion of watch-time on TV, combining for nearly 32% during the week.

Also: Fox Is Selling 2023 Super Bowl Spots as Sports Ad Market Heats Up

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

Live sports are usually a boost for TV ad impressions, and that remains the case right now with the NFL and college football in full swing, and the World Series continuing between the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros. While the NFL leads the way with nearly 7.6 billion impressions, Major League Baseball has over 4.7 billion (No. 2 on the week) courtesy of the World Series.

More data about the top programs by TV ad impressions during the week:

• Continuing the live sports theme, college football (No. 3) and the National Basketball Association (No. 9) also appear among this week’s top 10 shows by TV ad impressions.
• News and talk programs make up over half (13) of the top 25, led by Good Morning America at No. 4 overall with 938 million impressions.
• The Voice remains the lone reality competition show among the top 25 programs this week, delivering over 599 million TV ad impressions.

Fox rockets to the top of this week’s ad-impressions-by-network ranking via a Sunday NFL doubleheader, Saturday college football action and the World Series. As a result, the network leads No. 2 CBS by nearly 3 billion TV ad impressions on the week.

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions from Oct. 25-31:

• CBS wins via football as well, with a single Sunday NFL game window, and Saturday’s Florida vs. Georgia game, en route to 8.1 billion impressions.
• On the week, nearly 17% of NBC’s TV ad impressions come from Sunday Night Football, plus another 2.8% from Football Night in America.
• Weather Channel is No. 25 by impressions, as the network covers the final weeks of hurricane season on the Atlantic seaboard.
• Spanish-language coverage of the World Series accounts for almost 70% of Fox Deportes TV ad impressions for the week, as the network rises to No. 22 overall.

Fox broadcasting ‘s coverage of baseball’s World Series leads the Halloween weekend list of TV sports events airing across cable and broadcast networks. The broadcast network will air Game Four of the Houston Astros-Atlanta Braves matchup on Saturday night and Game Five of the Series on Sunday. The World Series was tied at one game each going into Friday night’s action. 

On the combat sports front, ESPN Plus will stream the Saturday afternoon UFC 267 fight card from Abu Dhabi featuring the main event fight between light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz and challenger Glover Teixeira. Also, Fubo Sports Network will air live the LXF 6 Lights Out Xtreme Fighting mixed martial arts event. In the boxing ring, Showtime, ESPN Plus and DAZN will televise separate Saturday night fight cards.

On the track, NBC on Sunday will televise the NASCAR Cup Xfinity 500 race, while FS1 will provide coverage of the NHRA Dodge/SRT Nationals. 

College football will enter its ninth weekend of its 2021 schedule with nine of the top 10 teams playing on national television networks on Saturday. CBS will air top-ranked Georgia’s game against Florida, while ESPN2 will televise second-ranked Cincinnati’s contest at Tulane. ABC will provide coverage of No. 4 Oklahoma’s game against Texas Tech, and No. 5 Ohio State’s battle against No. 20 Penn State. The remaining schedule includes No. 6 Michigan-No. 8 Michigan State (Fox), No. 7 Oregon-Colorado (Fox), No. 9 Iowa-Wisconsin (ESPN) and No. 10 Ole Miss-No. 18 Auburn (ESPN).

NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecast between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings tops a day of regional NFL game telecasts on CBS and Fox.  

With the advertising market for TV sports running hot, Fox is looking to sell commercials in the 2023 Super Bowl to advertisers now, 18 months before the game kicks off.

The 2021 National Football League season kicks off Thursday, and Fox and the other networks are reporting a surge in demand that has driven sales volume up significantly and hiking pricing by low-double digits — increases not seen for about a decade. 

ViacomCBS also reported strong demand for NFL ads on its CBS Sports broadcasts.

College football and postseason Major League Baseball are also running well ahead of forecast for Fox Sports.

Fox is taking advantage of what it expects to be a strong season by having its Tubi streaming service sponsor the post-game show, The OT. 

Comcast's NBCUniversal said in July that it had already sold 85% of its Super Bowl commercial inventory for the game at the end of this season to be played in February 2022, and Fox Sports executive VP Seth Winter, a former NBC sales exec, told B+C that he figures that NBC’s game now is just about sold out. He hears that NBC got about $5.5 million for each 30-second spot, with the most recent sales going for more than $6 million.

Winter said that Fox will strike while the iron is hot and while advertisers are concerned about getting shut out of the big game and worried that prices could continue to soar.

“There’s so much demand, we’re going to be in the market very early with it and also for the World Cup. We’re knee deep in conversations about the World Cup, which is basically maybe 14 months away,” he said. “There are a lot of good conversations around these big tentpole events. There’s so few of them and there’s just so much interest that it’s never too early to start having conversations and we’ve already written a few [World Cup] spots.”

Next year’s World Cup will be played in the fall, when demand is stronger, instead of the summer because of the heat in the deserts of Qatar, which will make the soccer tournament more popular in the U.S.

Last season, the upfront market — and sports sales — got pushed to Labor Day because marketers were unsure about their budgets and the networks’ ability to deliver programming. This year, the ad market rebounded and the upfront market closed stronger and earlier than it has in years. Sports has been riding a similar tide.

“Having seen the NFL execute almost perfectly under the most extraordinary, adverse conditions, people have a lot of confidence that the NFL under better conditions could certainly pull off another season flawlessly,” Winter said. 

That led to a ton of early interest in buying NFL ad inventory, he said, with some scatter dollars contributing to this season’s upfront volume. 

Sports continues to promise large audiences even as streaming siphons off ratings points from entertainment programming. 

“Advertisers continue to migrate their investments from other forms of media where there are fewer impressions into sports where there continues to be a pretty healthy reservoir of impressions,” Winter said.

With fans back in the stands, Fox is forecasting that viewing levels for the 2021 season will bounce back to the pre-COVID 2019 level, he said.

New categories are driving some of the sales, most notably the growing legal gambling category. “I haven’t seen a category come on the scene in such a robust fashion in my 15 years working in network sports,” Winter said. He added that the NFL’s rules limiting how many gambling spots can run in games will be good long-term for business—and be a benefit to viewers. Gambling ads are also showing up in the talk shows on FS1 and FS2.

Another new category is cryptocurrencies, with Crypto.com sponsoring NFL games and Fox’s Saturday afternoon college football show, and FDX, which is a Major League Baseball sponsor and will have a significant presence in the postseason.

This will be Fox’s last season broadcasting Thursday Night Football. That package moves exclusively to Amazon Prime Video next season. Winter said that some advertisers were shifting their spending from Thursdays to Sundays in order to lock in their base for the 2022 season, since Amazon’s ad sales strategy isn’t yet clear.

Last season, the NFL regular season generated $2.77 billion in ad sales, up 2.7% from the prior season, according to Standard Media Index. Fox had the largest share of that revenue, with 41%. 

Between the NFL on Thursdays and Sundays, college football and baseball’s postseason, Winter estimates that Fox has about 50% of the gross ratings points available in sports in the fall.

For baseball, Winter said, Fox could achieve its revenue forecasts even before the first pitch of the postseason.

“It’s sports. We’re very fortunate to be in the marketplace with the properties we have in our portfolio,” he said.

The delayed championship runs for the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball suffered a major body blow in the ratings, but industry observers say that viewership for those sports events should bounce back in 2021. 

Last month featured an unprecedented sports schedule in which the NBA Finals, hockey’s Stanley Cup Finals and baseball’s World Series all took place within three weeks in October. Pandemic-related delays caused the NHL and NBA to reschedule their playoffs from the spring to the fall, while baseball played three rounds of postseason games in a span of three weeks. 

While many observers predicted the games would generate strong appeal from sports-starved viewers, the championship runs for each sport suffered significant declines. The six-game World Series, pitting the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Tampa Bay Rays,  averaged 9.79 million viewers for Fox, down 30% from last year’s seven-game Washington Nationals-Houston Astros series (13.9 million) and finishing as the lowest-rated World Series ever, according to Sports Media Watch’s reporting of Nielsen ratings. 

The NBA Finals, where the Los Angeles Lakers bested the Miami heat in six games, also set a record low. ABC’s coverage averaged 7.49 million viewers, down 49% from last year’s Golden State Warriors-Toronto Raptors final in June 2019, according to Sports Media Watch. The six-game NHL Stanley Cup Finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Dallas Stars averaged 2.15 million viewers for NBC, down 60% from the June 2019 St. Louis Blues-Boston Bruins finals.

The unprecedented glut of pro content in such a short time span hurt viewership, sports analyst Lee Berke said. “We’ve never had a year where the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Finals and the World Series — along with Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football — are playing up against each other,” he said. “Under those circumstances there has to be some cannibalization of viewers.”

Media consultant Bill Carroll said other factors, such as the election and fears surrounding COVID-19, pushed potential sports viewers toward news programming. Indeed, networks such as Fox News Channel set audience records during October with continuing coverage of the election as well as pandemic-related developments. 

“Unfortunately, I think folks got used to not having sports, and more people focused on their health and the election — those sorts of things overshadow even live championship sports programming,” Carroll said. “That gets reflected in the ratings.” 

Content Still Valuable

Despite the low numbers, Berke is not worried about the future of live sports programming. He pointed to the positive trends regarding the business of TV sports content, including baseball’s recent extension with Turner Sports and the NFL’s recent deal with Amazon Prime Video to stream a playoff game in 2021, as evidence that live sports content is still a valuable commodity for cable, broadcast and streaming services. 

“Overall, sports viewership has gone up in terms of the amount of hours people are watching sports, along with the digital consumption of sports content which went up substantially (in October),” Berke said. “Once everything gets back in a pattern, I’m not foreseeing much of an issue. I don’t think anyone wants a repeat of this year with all of those big sports events going against each other.”

Viewers should return to their normal sports viewing patterns once league championships again take place during their usual timnes, Carroll said. 

“I think if and when we get back to some sense of normalcy next spring or summer, that may help turn things around,” he said. “If we’re still in relatively the same circumstance as we are right now, I think that will negatively impact what happens with any event.” 

This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Oct. 26 through Nov. 1, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks 

Via Vizio’s Inscape, the TV data company with insights from a panel of more than 16 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Simply put, America is spending a ton of time watching NFL games compared to everything else on TV. Of all the minutes watched last week, 7.44% were spent on NFL games, an increase from the previous week’s 6.70%. The 2020 World Series remained in second place (0.96%), while multiple news programs rose up the rankings — not surprising, as it was the last full week before the election.

Remarkably, there were no changes in the top 10 spots of the network ranking. Thanks in part to NFL games and the World Series, Fox led with 8.78% of the minutes watched, followed by NBC (8.36%) and Fox News (7.57%). Hallmark Movies & Mysteries moved up from No. 23 to No. 16, propelled by Christmas movies that are now airing in earnest. The only newcomer to the ranking was Freeform, which edged up from No. 30 to No. 25 with 0.85% of the minutes watched.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

NFL led with 7.8 billion TV ad impressions, a 6.6% decrease from the previous week. College football, on the other hand, saw an 8.9% increase in impressions week-over-week, up to 3.5 billion. MLB rounded out the top three with 1.4 billion impressions. While the majority of the ranking was made up of the various news programs we see each week, a few other popular shows made the list: The Voice took ninth place with 584.9 million impressions (a 25.41% decrease from the previous week), The Bachelorette delivered 328.1 million (nearly identical to the previous week) and This Is Us returned for its fifth season, racking up 318.8 million impressions with its two episodes that aired back-to-back.

Once again, first place went to Fox with 7.6 billion TV ad impressions, but it represented a 7.42% decrease from the previous week. NBC jumped into second place with 5.65 billion impressions and ABC took third (5.64 billion). The Weather Channel rose up the ranking, thanks to Hurricane Zeta and Winter Storm Billy coverage. New entrants to the ranking included Lifetime, with its 258 million impressions driven by primarily Christmas movies, Travel (279.8 million) and Investigation Discovery (235.5 million).

B&C has partnered with always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv to bring you a weekly chart we call Promo Mojo: exclusive data showing the top five TV promos ranked by ad impressions. Our data covers the seven-day period through Oct. 25.

On the strength of 286 million TV ad impressions, a promo for Discovery’s Gold Rush is No. 1. Among traditional broadcasters, Fox grabs two spots — second place to promote the 2020 World Series and fifth for College Football — while NBC hypes the new season of The Voice in third place.

Disney Channel rounds out the ranking with a general network promo in fourth place that doubles as a pandemic-era PSA (“Don’t forget: Wash your hands”).

Notably, the Disney spot has the highest iSpot Attention Index (117) in our ranking, meaning viewers were on average highly likely to watch it all the way through (vs. interrupting it by changing the channel, pulling up the guide, fast-forwarding or turning off the TV).

1) Gold Rush, Discovery

Impressions: 286,031,439

Completion Rate: 98.37

Attention Index: 100 (0% fewer interruptions than avg.)

Imp. Types: National 94%, Local 1%, VOD/OTT 5%

In-network Value: $2,124,153

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $477,329

2) 2020 World Series, Fox

Impressions: 271,689,605

Completion Rate: 98.95

Attention Index: 112 (12% fewer interruptions than avg)

Imp. Types: National 93%, Local 6%, VOD/OTT 1%

In-network Value: $4,092,877

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $180,357

3) The Voice, NBC

Impressions: 243,674,081

Completion Rate: 98.48

Attention Index: 103 (3% fewer interruptions than avg)

Imp. Types: National 85%, Local 12%, VOD/OTT 3%

In-network Value: $2,641,715

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $342,781

4) Wash Your Hands, Disney Channel

Impressions: 239,237,622

Completion Rate: 97.64

Attention Index: 117 (17% fewer interruptions than avg.)

Imp. Types: National 97%, Local 1%, VOD/OTT 2%

In-network Value: $2,841,219

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $0.00

5) College Football, Fox

Impressions: 232,177,446

Completion Rate: 98.26

Attention Index: 114 (14% fewer interruptions than avg.)

Imp. Types: National 93%, Local 6%, VOD/OTT 1%

In-network Value: $7,003,420

Out-of-network Est. Spend: $56,435

*Data provided by iSpot.tv, TV Ad Measurement for Disruptive Brands*

Impressions - The total impressions within all US households including National Linear (Live & Time-shifted), VOD+OTT, and Local.

Attention Score - Measures the propensity of consumers to interrupt an ad play on TV. The higher the score, the more complete views. Actions that interrupt an ad play include changing the channel, pulling up the guide, fast-forwarding or turning off the TV.

Attention Index - Represents the Attention of a specific creative or program placement vs. the average in its respective industry. The average is represented by a score of 100, and the total index range is from 0 through 200. For example, an attention index of 125 means that there are 25% fewer interrupted ad plays compared to the average.

Imp. Types - Impression types tracked include National (Live + Time-shifted), Local, VOD & OTT. See below for further details.

In-network Value - Estimated media value of in-network promos.

Out-of-network Spend - The estimated amount spent on TV airing time for this promo's spots during a given date range.

National: Live - A national promo which was viewed during live linear television broadcast or same day, via DVR or on-demand.

Local - A promo that was aired during a local ad break slot.

VOD - This includes promos that run in on-demand content past three days (i.e. do not contain the linear promo load)

OTT - On-demand streaming content (i.e. Hulu, Roku, Fire TV Stick, Chromecast).

This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Oct. 19-25, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks 

Via Vizio’s Inscape, the TV data company with insights from a panel of more than 16 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Once again sports led for watch-time: NFL games captured 6.70% of the minutes watched last week, followed by the 2020 World Series (3.33%) and college football (1.53%). Various news programs also rose up in the rankings, and it’s worth noting that all of the shows that didn’t see week-over-week rankings changes were Fox News programs. The Voice, which had its two-night premiere on Oct. 19 and 20, jumped into 12th place with 0.57% of the minutes watched.

Fox took No. 1 on the network ranking for the second week in a row (10.09%), thanks in part to NFL and World Series games. NBC rose into second place with 8.19% of the minutes watched, partially fueled by NFL games and The Voice. Multiple cable networks also moved up, including two ranking newcomers: Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (0.92%) and TV Land (0.86%).

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

TV ad impressions for NFL games jumped up 26.83% week-over-week, to 8.4 billion. MLB (3.4 billion) and college football (3.2 billion) maintained their second and third places, respectively. NBC’s The Voice, which kicked off its 19th season last week, snagged fourth place with 784.2 million TV ad impressions, nearly 110 million more than the No. 5 program (America’s Newsroom).

Not only did Fox keep its first-place position from the previous week, it delivered over 8.3 billion TV ad impressions, a 46.22% week-over-week increase. CBS, in second place with nearly 6.9 billion impressions, also saw an increase: 36.95%. Unsurprisingly, sports were critical to the impressions for both networks: On Fox, over 3.3 billion impressions came from MLB games and 3.2 billion from NFL games — combined, making up 78.8% of the network’s total impressions for the week. Over half of CBS’ impressions came from NFL games (3.2 billion), with Big Brother as the No. 2 impressions-driving program (419.3 million). Notable newcomers to the top 25 ranking included Hallmark (337.6 million impressions), which kicked off its “Countdown to Christmas” movie event on Oct. 24, and Big Ten Network (245.4 million), a result of the Big Ten conference finally starting their season.

Sports fans will have plenty to watch this weekend as the World Series marches on, the UFC offers a major pay-per-view event and the Big Ten returns to the football field.

After splitting the first two games, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays each look to take control of the 2020 World Series this weekend beginning with game three Friday night followed by game four Saturday night and game five on Sunday--all airing live on Fox broadcasting. The Dodgers are looking to win their first World Series since 1988, while the Rays are looking to take home the series trophy for the first time in franchise history. 

Also on tap this weekend is the UFC 254 mixed martial arts pay-per-view event from Abu Dhabi featuring a Khabib Nurmagomedov-Justin Gaethje lightweight championship main event. ESPN Plus will distribute the fight card to subscribers of the streaming service in a rare 2 p.m. (ET) start time.

The Big Ten Conference will kick off its 2020 season on Friday with Wisconsin facing Illinois on the Big Ten Network. Other big nationally televised Big Ten weekend matchups include Saturday’s Ohio State-Nebraska game on Fox. The 14-team conference last month decided to launch a conference-only football schedule after initially announcing in August that it would not play this season due to coronavirus concerns. 

The NFL has switched NBC’s Oct. 25 Sunday Night Football telecast to the Seattle Seahawks-Arizona Cardinals game from its originally scheduled Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Las Vegas Raiders contest after the Raiders placed several players on its COVID-19/reserve list. The league said the move was made to ensure a game would be played on Sunday night even though the Raiders-Buccaneers game is still scheduled to be played Sunday afternoon, according to ESPN.com.

For a list of live, televised sports events this weekend, click here.

Fox won the Wednesday ratings race easily, the World Series giving the network a big victory. Fox had a 1.8 in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and an 11 share. In second was ABC at 0.7/4. 

Fox had Rays-Dodgers across prime as Tampa Bay evened the series. The rating stayed level with Game One. 

ABC had the premiere of The Goldbergs, with two episodes across the 8 p.m. hour at 0.8. It is season eight of that comedy. After comedy repeats, Whoopi Goldberg-narrated The Con shot up 67% to 0.5. 

CBS rated a 0.6/4. Big Brother got a 0.9 and The Amazing Race a 0.6, both down a tenth of a point. A SWAT rerun was on at 10. 

NBC and Telemundo both scored a 0.5/3. On NBC, The Wall went up 50% to 0.6 and two hours of American Ninja Warrior fell 33% to 0.4.

Telemundo had Premios Billboard De La Musica Latina 2 across primetime. The special got a 0.8 last year. 

Univision got a 0.4/2. Medicos and Imperio De Mentiras both notched a 0.4 and Dulce Ambicion a 0.3. Everything on Univision was up a tenth of a point. 

The CW got a 0.1/1. Devils and Coroner both rated a flat 0.1.

Fox won the Tuesday prime ratings race, the opener of the World Series, Dodgers versus Rays, propelling the network. Fox had a 1.8 in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and an 11 share. Tied for second were ABC and NBC both at 0.9/5. 

Fox had baseball across prime, at 2.1, then 1.7, then 1.5. Game one got a 3.5 in 2018 and a 3.1 in 2019, that one with the Nationals against the Astros. 

ABC had The Bachelorette at 1.1 and then 1.0 from 8 to 10 p.m., down 19% from its season starter, and a Supermarket Sweep rerun. 

On NBC it was The Voice at 1.0 across two hours, down 17% from its season premiere, then Transplant at 0.6, double its last score. 

CBS got a 0.4/2. Reruns led into The FBI Declassified at 0.4, way down from the 0.9 it did a week ago with an NFL lead in. 

Telemundo and Univision both rated a 0.3/2. Telemundo had El Domo del Dinero at 0.2 and Todo Por Mi Hija at 0.3, both down a tenth of a point, and Falsa Identidad at a level 0.2. 

On Univision it was Medicos up 33% to 0.4, and Imperio de Mentiras at 0.3 and Dulce Ambicion at 0.2, the latter two flat. 

The CW got a 0.1/1. Swamp Thing and Tell Me a Story both scored a 0.1. Swamp Thing lost a tenth and Tell Me a Story stayed flat. 

Fox Sports’ coverage of the 2020 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays debuts tonight (Oct. 20) on Fox broadcasting and Fox Deportes.

The 116th edition of the Fall Classic will be played at a neutral site -- Globe Life Field in Arlington Tx -- for the first time ever due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. The league will allow up to 11,500 fans to attend each game. 

Game two of the series will be played tomorrow (Oct. 21), with games three, four and five (if necessary) set for Oct. 23-Oct. 25. If necessary, game six and seven will take place on Oct. 27 and Oct. 28, respectively. 

Along with Fox broadcasting, MLB.TV subscribers will be able to stream the games live, while MLB Network will provide extensive live coverage of each game. 

The Dodgers will be making their third World Series appearance in the last four years, while the Tampa Bay Rays will be making their second appearance ever in the fall classic. The team lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008.  

The NFL Thursday said it will now push the Pittsburgh Steelers-Tennessee Titans game to later in the season after more Titans players and staff tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. 

In a statement, the league said the week four game initially slated for this Sunday will be "rescheduled to later in the season" after a Titans player and personnel member tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the number to 11 team members, according to CBS.com. The Titans facility, which was closed earlier this week, will remain closed and the team will continue to have no in-person activities until further notice, said the statement.

The announcement comes a day after the league said it had hoped to play the game either Monday or Tuesday night. 

As the NFL looks to manage COVID-19 outbreaks, Major League Baseball is planning to allow limited fan attendance to its National League Championship Series and World Series games to be held in Texas, according to the New York Times. 

The games will be held in Arlington at the Texas Rangers' new retractable-roof stadium -- the first time the World Series will be held at a neutral site. The league will make 11,500 tickets available per game to sit in the stands and in luxury suites, according to the Times. 

The league will not sell tickets to division series games, which will be held in Houston and Arlington for the National League and in Los Angeles and San Diego for the American League. The league is also not planning to sell tickets to the A.L. Championship Series, which will be played in San Diego, according to the report.  

The National Football League kicks off its 2020 season tonight (Sept. 10) with NBC’s live coverage of Houston Texans-Kansas City Chiefs game, adding to what is emerging as a cornucopia of live sports content for fans to watch on broadcast and cable networks during the fourth quarter as the entertainment industry continues to recover from the COVID-19 outbreak.

The next few months will be an exhilarating and exhausting period for sports fans and network sports producers as the NBA Finals, NHL Stanley Cup finals, baseball’s playoffs and World Series, The PGA Masters Tournament, the Preakness Stakes -- the third leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown races -- and live NFL and college football regular season games are all scheduled to hit the field. That doesn't include the numerous live boxing, mixed martial arts, tennis and other pro sports events that are also set for action through the end of the year. 

With the launch of the traditional fall broadcast television season mostly on hold due to the pandemic-delayed production of scripted series, networks will lean on those live sports events to help fill the original programming void in primetime.

Just this past Sunday, three of the four major broadcast networks featured live sports programming in a primetime block usually reserved for new, original entertainment content. ABC aired the Houston Rockets-Los Angeles Lakers NBA Western Conference Semifinal game; NBC offered the first game of the Dallas Stars-Vegas Golden Knights NHL Western Conference Finals and Fox stepped into the boxing ring for a live fight card. Ratings have at least been solid and in some cases show there was pent-up demand: NBA games in primetime after the July restart were 80% ahead of the viewing before the March shutdown, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“Usually everybody in the sports business works hard not to have major sports events bump into one another,” said sports analyst Lee Berke. “It’s going to be less so this year because of the pandemic. At the same time you’re going to have primetime nights of the week that are going to be bereft of original programming if not for sports.” 

The sports schedule is getting so packed for NBC that it will move a Sept. 19 Notre Dame-South Florida primetime telecast to sister cable service USA Network so it can televise a live NHL Stanley Cup playoff game.

Berke says while the glut of sports programming could dampen ratings for some live sports events, he believes there is a huge audience of sports fans willing to watch the games, particularly events that feature familiar and popular players and teams. 

“I think there is a big enough audience for all of it,” he said. “Some events will suffer, particularly if the events don’t have stars in place, but the flip side is the cupboard is bare on the entertainment side. You’ll have a much broader audience that will tune into live sports for the foreseeable future.”

Major League Baseball has jumped into the gaming arena, partnering with MGM Resorts International on a multi-year agreement.

The deal calls for MGM Resorts to utilize baseball’s official statistics feed throughout its sports betting operations, as well as feature enhanced baseball statistics on an exclusive basis. The two companies will work together on “comprehensive responsible gaming measures” in an effort to protect the integrity of the game both on and off the field, according to officials from both companies. 

“We have proceeded in exploring this opportunity cautiously and thoughtfully – always with an eye on preserving the integrity of our sport,” said MLB commissioner Robert Manfred said during a Tuesday press conference announcing the deal. “We concluded that MGM was the perfect partner for us.”

The deal comes as a result of a May Supreme Court decision allowing state-sponsored sports betting on professional sports. Since the ruling, New Jersey, Mississippi, New Mexico, West Virginia, Delaware, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania have opened up sports betting operations, according to ESPN. 

With the deal, Major League Baseball joins the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League in partnering with MGM.

Manfred said during the press conference that research has shown that sports betting on baseball games could be an important source of fan engagement. “We operate in a very competitive environment and we have to take advantage of every opportunity to drive engagement by our fans,” he said. “There’s been a huge change in public opinion within the legal framework surrounding sports gaming that has presented an opportunity for all sports, and baseball in particular.”

MGM will serve as an official sponsor of MLB and have a branding presence in baseball’s biggest events, including the World Series and All-Star game. The MGM brand will also be prevalent across MLB’s digital and broadcast platforms, including MLB Network, MLB.com and the MLB At Bat app.

Fox Sports has extended its relationship with Major League Baseball, signing a new multi-year, multi-platform rights deal with the league through 2028.

Fox Sports will remain the exclusive home of the World Series and baseball’s All-Star game, while retaining rights to post-season coverage of one League Championship Series  -- TBS will air the other LCS -- as well as coverage of two Division Series, according to the company. 

Under the new agreement, FOX Sports will also continue to air 52 Saturday regular-season broadcast games with highlights packages, as well as maintain MLB-centric programs and Spanish-language rights through FOX Deportes.

Fox Broadcasting will increase its coverage of regular season and postseason games beginning in 2022, according to both parties.

“Fox Sports has been our national television partner for over 20 years and I could not be more pleased to announce the extension of our relationship through the 2028 season,” said commissioner Robert Manfred. “We value Fox Sports’ commitment to baseball and are excited to continue our partnership with this new agreement. Their innovative presentation of Major League Baseball through game telecasts and special programming across all their platforms has helped strengthen and elevate our sports’ popularity.”

On the digital side, the new agreement will include expanded streaming, social media and highlight rights. Fox will also will televise special event games to be determined over the term of the agreement.

Fox Sports’ current eight-year, reportedly $4 billion deal would have expired in 2021. Terms of the new deal were not disclosed.

“Major League Baseball has been a cornerstone of FOX Sports since 1996,” said Fox Sports CEO and executive producer, Eric Shanks in a statement. “It’s an honor to have shared countless historic moments with our viewers over the last 22 seasons. We are extremely proud to continue to be the home of Major League Baseball’s jewel events for the next decade.”

Last night’s Houston Astros-Los Angeles Dodgers World Series Game Seven telecast on Fox hit a social media home run, generating more than 26 million online interactions according to Nielsen.

The Astros’ 5-1 victory over the Dodgers to win a thrilling World Series drew a whopping 26.1 million interactions across Facebook and Twitter from 8 million unique social media accounts, according to Nielsen’s Social Content Ratings Daily List.

ESPN Deportes and FS1’s UEFA Champions League Soccer coverage drew 303,000 interactions to finish a distant second. 

On the entertainment front, the CW’s Riverdale was the most talked about series on Tuesday with 157,000 social media interactions, according to Nielsen.

More than 5 million viewers tuned into TBS last night to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Chicago Cubs to win baseball's National League Championship Series, according to Nielsen.

TBS' game five NLCS coverage -- in which the Dodgers defeated the Cubs 11-1 to secure a trip to the World Series -- generated 5.2 million viewers, up 84% over game five of the 2016 Toronto Blue Jays-Cleveland Indians American League Championship series, according to TBS.

The game also drew more than 6.5 million Twitter and Facebook interactions across 2.5 million unique social media accounts, according to Nielsen.

Overall, the Dodgers-Cubs series averaged 6.2 million viewers, up 88% over TBS’ Jays-Indians coverage, according to the network.

National cable sports network FS1 scored the most Sports Emmy Awards during ceremony held Tueaday night in New York.

FS1 took home nine Sports Emmys to top all cable and broadcast networks, according to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Sister broadcast network Fox finished second with seven awards, according to the Academy.

HBO and NBC tied for third with five awards, while CBS, ESPN and MLB Network garnered four awards each.

Overall, the Fox Sports Media Group earned 18 Sports Emmys, followed by the NBC Sports Group with 15 statuettes. NBC’s coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics won the most Sports Emmys with four, followed by two awards each for Fox’s New England Patriots-Altanta Falcons Super Bowl coverage and the network's coverage of the classic 2016 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians, as well as HBO’s long-running magazine show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel.

“Tonight we salute the competence, skill and grandeur that is the sports broadcasting industry,” said Bob Mauro, President, NATAS in a statement. “In addition to celebrating the outstanding work by this evening’s nominees, we are pleased to honor Brent Musburger for his long and prolific career and present him with the Sports Lifetime Achievement Award.”

The Presidential election and a record World Series helped drive revenue at 21st Century Fox in the fiscal first quarter, and domestic ad revenue rose in the double digits.

At Fox' cable networks, revenue rose 7% in the quarter to $3.97 billion and cash flow increased 6% to $1.3 billion, driven by strong ratings at Fox News during and after the Presidential election, won by network fan Donald Trump, as well as strong post-season baseball ratings at FS1. Domestic affiliate fees were up 7% in the period.

On the broadcast side, revenue rose 12% to $1.9 billion and cash flow increased 35% to $376 million, fueled by a record World Series. The seven-game match-up between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs was the most-watched Fall Classic in 25 years.

Overall revenue was up 4% to $7.7 billion and cash flow increased 15% to $1.99 billion.

The revenue results were in line with analysts’ estimates, who expected a strong showing from Fox News. But Fox more than doubled ad sales predictions – some  analysts expected a 5% gain in ad revenue.

“We delivered a second consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth, driven by solid increases in affiliate and advertising revenues across cable and television,” Fox executive chairman Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. “Our record-breaking post-season baseball run underscores the immense value of our sports programming, as well as the broader competitive advantage we have built through our other leadership positions in entertainment and news. We also continue to excel creatively, with our television studio producing the number one series on six networks, FX Networks leading all networks in Golden Globe wins and our film studio recognized with 7 Academy Award nominations. Additionally, during the quarter we announced an offer to purchase the approximate 61% interest in Sky we do not already own. We expect the transaction will generate significant adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow accretion and it provides clarity on our near-term capital allocation priorities.”

When Jamie Horowitz took the reins of FS1 as president of Fox Sports National Networks in 2015, he decided to chart a new course for the three-year-old service. He put a heavy emphasis on opinion-themed, sports-centric talk shows during the network’s daytime block, rather than try to compete with the tried-and-true news/information format that became a cornerstone of its closest competitor ESPN, through its SportsCenter franchise.

“What we realized was the people don’t want to get sports information anymore in the mornings — they’ve already discussed what happened during the game with their buddies and their family and now they want to know whether their takes are as interesting as the shows we have on the network,” FS1 executive vice president of content Charlie Dixon explained. “We knew we had to create habit-forming programming — people want to know what they’re going to get every day.”

Horowitz was intimately familiar with ESPN, having joined the network as a senior producer in 2006 and serving as the network’s executive vice president of original programming and production — launching such programs as ESPN2’s popular sports-debate show First Take — before leaving in 2014 to head up NBC’s Today.

In 2015, FS1 set out to aggressively seek out the biggest names in TV sports talk to sit behind its cameras and microphones. In August of that year, FS1 and Horowitz signed longtime ESPN talk-show host Colin Cowherd to helm the afternoon sports-talk show The Herd.

This past September, veteran sports-talk personality and ex-First Take co-host Skip Bayless and former National Football League star Shannon Sharpe joined the roster for Undisputed, a new morning sports-debate show that firms up a daytime block of original, talk-themed content that Horowitz hoped would appeal to viewers who already knew the day’s breaking sports news of the day but wanted to gain perspective from a variety of different opinions and outlooks.

“Jamie Horowitz is the reason I came over to Fox Sports,” Bayless told Multichannel News. “Jamie took a big risk on me at ESPN and I like to think it paid off, and then fate struck again and I had the ability to reunite with him at Fox. I couldn’t have been more excited about the opportunity.”

The experiment seems to be working. After only two months on the air, Undisputed has grown audience for its 10 a.m. to noon timeslot by 400% year over year and, more importantly from a competition standpoint, has closed the gap to ESPN from a factor of 23:1 to a 3:1 ratio.

Further under Horowitz’s tutelage, FS1 has cut into ESPN’s audience lead on a total-day basis in 2016 from 8:1 to 4:1, in large part to its growth in daytime hours and the success of its primetime live event programming. FS1 set ratings marks in October and was the most watched network in primetime among all cable networks for two weeks straight (Oct. 10-Oct. 23) on the strength of live Major League Baseball playoff coverage — specifically of the Chicago Cubs vs. Los Angeles Dodgers National League Championship series.

Horowitz, in the spotlight as Multichannel News Sports Brand Executive of the Year (sharing honors with WNBA president Lisa Borders), spoke with MCN programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about the evolution of FS1 and what’s next for the national sports service.

MCN:Was there a big adjustment for you working at Fox Sports, particularly after having been successful at ESPN?

Jamie Horowitz: I think I told my boss [Fox Sports president and chief operating officer Eric Shanks] during the interview that I’ve always been a Fox guy, but I’ve just worked other places. There’s a fearlessness to the Murdoch spirit. I think that’s really one of the many reasons I was excited to join Fox is because when we did market research and we asked sports fans what do you want in a sports network, the words they would use — not knowing Fox was asking — were honest, combative and filled with risks. They think they’re describing just a sports network, but they were describing the values that we hold dear here, so I knew this would be a great match.

MCN:Obviously, your biggest competitor remains the well-established ESPN sports brand. How did you want to position FS1 against its biggest competitor?

JH: First, I want to say I love ESPN. Not only did I love it as an employee while working under [ESPN president] John Skipper, but I also loved it as a consumer. I grew up on SportsCenter and, in a lot of ways, ESPN and Fox are in the same business. But to me there are four different components of being a sports network: there’s live events; there’s pre- and post-game shows; there’s news and highlights; and there’s opinion based programs. We’re making a big bet on live events and so is ESPN. We’re making a big bet on pre- and post-game shows; so is ESPN.

ESPN is making a big bet on news and information: 54% of their schedule is SportsCenter. We’re making a big bet on opinion-based programming. The thing that helps build a brand for a company and that eats up a ton of hours are the daily shows. So one of the changes we made when we joined FS1 is that we were going to make a huge investment in opinion-based programming, and that will be our source of differentiation.

When you wake up in the morning, I just think sports fans go to the phone to get the headlines and the highlights, then they turn on the TV to find people with perspective. And that’s the bet we’ve made with Skip Bayless, Shannon Sharpe, Colin Cowherd, Katie Nolan and Jason Whitlock — you are seeing us make these bets time and again.

MCN:How have those bets paid off at this particular point?

JH: We’ve improved the time period by 400% — it looks like a typo. Someone could say its coming from a low base, and I’d say that’s the point. The point is that people weren’t coming and now they are in record numbers. It’s amazing — from 10 a.m. to [noon], we saw the [audience ratio] in that timeslot was 23:1 [compared to ESPN]. That’s like me playing my 7-year-old son in basketball. Now it’s 3:1 — some days its less than 2:1. It’s incredible.

MCN:Some will say that that improvement came at a high cost of acquiring the talent that you just mentioned.

JH: There’s a great misunderstanding about these shows from a financial point of view. They say the talent is highly compensated and that is true. However, that is the lion’s share of the cost to the show. These shows are actually incredibly inexpensive to produce, relative to a traditional news-and-information show that has to send trucks all over the country at all hours trying to gather the news of the day. That’s an expensive operation. We still report the news, except [Undisputed co-host] Joy Taylor will read it and say, “Oh, that’s an interesting story ... I didn’t know Jerry Jones said that to some other news organization.” Then we even play that sound bite, so we’re delivering the same news but adding our opinions about it. So it’s nice when you can say your programming is economically efficient and it rates higher.

MCN:What do you say to critics who say your sports talk shows are all discussing the same one or two stories all day long, just with different voices?

JH: That is a misunderstanding of how TV actually works from people who never actually produced television. The way I try to explain that is to say if you ran a Starbucks and were serving lattes in the morning would you say to your boss, “You know you serve lattes all morning; we should probably stop it this afternoon.” No, you wouldn’t — when coming to Starbucks, there is an expectation of what they are. And the person who comes in at 10 in the morning is not the same person that’s there at three in the afternoon. And so when people say to me that I heard Skip at 9:30 in the morning talking about [Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Tony Romo], and then at 2:30 Colin was talking about the same thing, I say, “Yes!” They are talking to different viewers, and the viewer at 2:30 is just as important than the one at 9:30, and they deserve the most interesting stories of the day.

MCN:So you have daytime covered with opinion-themed programming and live sports events in primetime. Are there any other dayparts you’ll be focusing on in the near future?

JH:Undisputed has generated strong ratings, and, more importantly, they’ve driven up ratings for The Herd, which is up 64% year over year. So you don’t have to be the smartest guy in the room to say if you put a compelling show on in front of The Herd and it’s up 64%, why don’t you do the same thing for Skip and Shannon? So our plan is to at some point in the next couple months start the process of meeting with talent and creating a show to lead into Undisputed.

MCN:How do you see FS1’s overall development evolving a year from now?

JH: Listen, I think the goal for these studio shows is to create habit-forming television and to speak directly to what the viewer wants from those shows. Eric Shanks says it best: I am more optimistic about FS1 today than any day in its history. I share those sentiments and my bet is a year from now I’ll be more optimistic on that day than I was today and every day since then. It’s such a fun time to be at FS1 because we are in such an incredible growth mode.

SIDEBAR: FS1’s Tale of the Ratings Tape

Under the tutelage of Fox Sports National Networks president Jamie Horowitz, FS1 has scored big year-to-year ratings growth both in total viewers and in its target male 18-34 audience, according to Nielsen.

FS1 2016 vs. 2015 (Total Day)*

+14% on Household Rating

+12% on Persons 2+ (average audience)

+10% on Men 18-34 (average audience)

FS1 2016 vs. 2015 (Prime)*

+25% on Household Rating

+24% on Persons 2+ (average audience)

+16% on Men 18-34 (average audience)

*Period for 2016 is 1/1/16-12/4/16; Period for 2015 is 1/1/15-12/6/15

SOURCE : Nielsen, Fox Sports

Free and subscription video-on-demand services sparked a major shift toward over-the-top viewing. Now, the emergence of virtual pay TV providers is stoking another big OTT movement — this time toward linear, live TV services.

This latest trend is shepherded by a new breed of virtual multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) services such as Sling TV and Sony’s PlayStation Vue, and will now expand with last week’s launch of DirecTV Now, as well as online pay TV offerings coming from Hulu and YouTube.

Though use of OTT services is on the rise, even during highly viewed “tentpole” events, it remains relatively small compared to traditional pay TV audiences. Significant scale is coming, though. Meeting the increased demand for live TV feeds via the Internet presents a broad mix of critical technology and business-related challenges that will need to be addressed as Internet- fed audiences continue to expand in the years to come.

STARTED WITH VOD

For OTT video, on-demand was the first entrée, in part because it was easier to engineer. VOD requires materially fewer moving parts and less complicated workflows, John Bishop, chief technology officer of Akamai Technologies’ media business unit, said.

Next came one-off live events, which were more difficult to handle, though Akamai’s platform now handles tens of thousands of them — perhaps 100,000 — per day.

“But what is new right now is linear [networks],” Bishop said. “They are similar to live events from a functionality standpoint, but when you look at it from a redundancy, planning and maintenance perspective, they are very different.”

Some live events, including NBCUniversal’s expansive online coverage of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janiero earlier this year, are especially intensive. They also provide windows of inactivity that allow for changes and tweaks, though.

“We don’t have that luxury with linear,” Bishop said. “It’s always running.”

While picture quality, consistency and the quality of the experience are all key “tenets” of live streaming, “scale is always the hard one,” he said.

Online video publishers are seeing a greater push into the live arena. “Most every new customer has a requirement for some kind of live [component],” Arik Gaisler, Kaltura senior director of product management, infrastructure, said.

Even partners that don’t have a live stream are looking to add a live-like experience using preprogrammed VOD content that can be spliced into a linear-style stream, Gaisler said.

Progress is being made. It wasn’t long ago that any streaming number with the word “million” tied to it was cause for major concern, Bishop recalled. “We would’ve all gotten the cold shakes — this was an all-hands-on-deck, student-body-left movement,” he said.

These days, preparing for 5 million concurrent streams doesn’t cause a lot of lost sleep.

“North of 10 million gets me very worried,” Bishop said. “And what scares me online is 125 million coming in possibly for an event like the Super Bowl. We’re not there yet.”

Fortunately, neither is the online viewership of pro football’s marquee matchup. Availability of live Super Bowl streams are now the norm, but they tend to be a complementary option to the traditional TV feed.

CBS’s live stream of Super Bowl 50 in February drew 3.96 million unique viewers, far behind the 111.9 million viewers who tuned into the CBS telecast.

SCALING UP

“We still have a long way to get to the point where we can handle broadcast-level scale,” Devin Poolman, senior vice president of digital platforms at Fox Sports, said. “We’re seeing tremendous growth curves … but we need to start building for [broadcast-level scale] now — not just for ourselves, but as an industry.”

During Game 7 of Major League Baseball’s World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians on Nov. 2 — a tight contest that saw the Cubs prevail by a score of 8-7 — more than 1 million consumers viewed some 3.5 million-plus streams via Fox Sports Go, the programmer’s TV everywhere service. Those were OTT records for Fox Sports, yet relatively small figures placed against the 40 million viewers who tuned in via traditional TV for the series clincher.

“Relative to our past records, over the last six months we have quadrupled our bests in terms of concurrent audience,” Poolman said.

Sling TV, Dish Network’s OTT TV service, doesn’t break out subscriber numbers, but says its totals have been on the rise since its debut in February 2015.

“We have seen continued growth and we’re pleased with how the year has progressed,” Ben Weinberger, chief product officer at Sling TV, said, noting that live events, led by sports, tend to drive traffic to the OTT TV service.

The recent presidential election, and the debates that surrounded it, also created spikes in usage. And, on occasion, sports and the election collided.

A case in point was on Sept. 26, when the first Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton presidential debate outstreamed the New Orleans Saints-Atlanta Falcons Monday Night Football game. On Sling TV, the debate at its peak generated 68% more viewers than the football game. Together, the game and the debate helped to shatter all of Sling TV’s previous viewership records.

Jason Thibeault, executive director of the Streaming Video Alliance, a cross-industry group that counts members such as Comcast, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Charter Communications and NeuLion, is also taking on the scalability challenge that live OTT will face as Internet-using audiences continue to grow.

“We don’t have the infrastructure available to deliver live video to 15 million people concurrently. That would break the Internet,” Thibeault said. “There’s a whole value chain when it comes to delivering live video. It has challenges in front of it in order to make it broadcast quality.”

INFRASTRUCTURE WORRIES

Among the solutions getting a close look are multicast streaming, which is more efficient than unicast streaming because it allows a subset of viewers to share live streams; and LTE-B, also referred to as evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS).

SVA, meanwhile, is focusing on the live-streaming challenge in part through a new Open Caching working group that’s focused on putting caches deep into the network, as close to the user as possible. In addition to helping with concurrent streaming, the project will also target latency so that OTT viewers receive a feed more closely synched to the traditional TV broadcast, rather than one that lags 30 seconds behind it.

SVA is creating the functional requirements and technical specifications to build a new open caching infrastructure for companies in the OTT ecosystem. Next year, several SVA member companies are expected to collaborate on a proof-of-concept/demonstration of the open-caching idea.

“Hopefully that will solve some of the latency issues and improve the end-user experience for content delivery for both VOD and for live,” Thibeault said. “All of these players recognize that this is what consumers want and this is the next generation of the television experience.”

Bishop agreed. “Being close to the edge matters more and more now,” he said. “Consumers are expecting lower latency and high data rates. All of that needs to be served as close to the end user as possible.”

Bishop and Akamai are also strong advocates of shifting OTT video to the User Datagram Protocol, an alternative system known for delivering lower latencies and being less “chatty” than Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

Bishop sees TCP and UDP as coexisting for a long time to come, but expects adoption of UDP to “start small and then quickly ramp up” over the next 36 months.

Much of that work will need to happen on the client side of the streaming equation — laptop browsers, tablets, smartphones and connected-TV platforms. Google Chrome already has native support for UDP, but other devices, such as the iPhone, will need a software development kit to receive UDP content, Bishop explained. Akamai is making an SDK available for free that can pull UDP-based content off its platform, he said.

Dan Rayburn, executive vice president of StreamingMedia. com and a principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan, has a different view about the big issues being confronted by live OTT. Some providers are playing it too close to the edge to keep costs in check, he said, which in turn exposes them to unnecessary outages.

Others, like Twitch, the Amazon-owned company behind the popular live-streaming video game service of the same name, rarely run into buffering and capacity issues. Rayburn calls MLB Advanced Media the “gold standard” for live OTT streaming, and a big reason why PlayStation Vue and online video services from the WWE and the National Hockey League use that platform.

“They understand the importance of live. They understand that you get one chance to do it right,” Rayburn said, noting that MLBAM recognizes that underspending on streaming infrastructure and backend workflow systems can harm its reputations and brands.

“Some of the biggest challenges [with live streaming] aren’t technical; they’re business-related,” Rayburn said, pointing out that the vast majority of OTT TV services aren’t adding subscribers rapidly enough to make scale much of an issue — yet.

Some of the newer OTT TV players won’t be able to survive without being subsidized by a well-funded parent, Rayburn added.

Sling TV “wouldn’t be in business if they weren’t owned by Dish,” he said. “They wouldn’t survive [because] their subscriber count is too low.”

And as for DirecTV Now, the new OTT TV service from AT&T? “DirecTV Now couldn’t roll out on its own, because the model doesn’t make sense,” Rayburn said, noting that OTT providers have to pay more in capacity as more and more customers stream content from them.

To its credit, AT&T is nailing up enough capacity to support 1 million simultaneous DirecTV Now users a year from now, he said, citing his sources in the online video industry.

“AT&T is being realistic, internally, in saying, we don’t think we’re going to get that many subs in the first year,” Rayburn said.

AT&T has not made any subscriber predictions for DirecTV Now, other than to say it will be targeted to the 20 million U.S. homes currently outside the traditional pay TV ecosystem.

The company appears confident that it will be able to deliver a high-quality, stable experience for a service that will be streaming more than 100 live TV feeds.

AT&T: WE’RE CONFIDENT

“We do scale at AT&T,” John Stankey, CEO of AT&T Entertainment Group, stressed at the company’s DirecTV Now press event on Nov. 28 in New York. “When you bring a product in, it needs to be scaled.”

Stankey said the new video platform, which DirecTV Now is riding on, will serve as “the foundation for how we’re going to do things in the future.”

Rayburn said it’s important to remember that OTT and broadcast TV are different animals. At a base level, the Internet is open and public, made up of myriad networks and systems. Broadcast television is a closed, standardized and private system that is largely based on fixed costs. “From a cost and infrastructure standpoint, it’s night and day,” he said.

“People always connect capacity with streaming,” Rayburn said, but problems that occur aren’t always with the video itself. Often the problem is an issue with the player, the authentication system or a bad API. “There’s all kinds of steps in the process that have to work perfectly and tie into one another. If any of those don’t work or get hung up, you can’t even get to the video.”

Fox Sports’s Poolman agreed: “Different systems have to work well together. Invariably, there are different failure points or choke points. We spend a lot of our time on how to mitigate that and also have the redundancy and more efficient paths to get to the end user.”

OTT TV providers such as Sling TV need to have a good sense of the average audience to prepare for, but remain agile enough to add streaming and sign-on capacity if, for example, a big breaking news event occurs.

“We have to prepare for normal traffic and we need to prepare for spikes in that traffic because of unexpected events, and we need to prepare for new people coming into the service at the same time,” Weinberger said. “A lot of that has to do with the entire ecosystem that we put in place. There’s only so many things that we can control.”

SIDEBAR: fuboTV Forges a Build-vs.-Buy Path

fuboTV, the self-proclaimed “sports-first” virtual MVPD that launched in January 2015, faced a big challenge in July when FC Barcelona squared off against Real Madrid — a match between popular and rival La Liga soccer clubs that’s known as “El Clasico” whenever it occurs.

fuboTV, which delivered the game via its distribution deal with beIN Sports, ran into some technology snafus: Some subscribers had trouble signing on and others reported different streaming-related issues.

The troubles were temporary, but they happened during a major sporting event and fuboTV made the decision to offer s $15 credit (applied in three monthly $5 increments) to affected subscribers.

It turned into a valuable lesson for the OTT service, which decided it made sense to rebuild its platform in-house rather than relying on one that was largely based on outsourced products.

“When I took this job, I expected very heavily to buy systems from other vendors and put them together,” said Jason Solinsky, a former Google engineer named chief technology officer of fuboTV in August.

“In fact, we’ve gone the opposite direction,” he said, noting that an enormous amount of the software that powers the service’s platform, including its account management and package management systems and code, have been rewritten and developed internally.

“That’s the only way to achieve reliability that’s on par with a cable system,” he said.

fuboTV is about halfway through with replacing its infrastructure, Solinsky said, and expects to complete the job by the end of 2017 if not earlier.

The service now better understands what’s required to develop and scale an OTT TV service and “where the pain parts are,” cofounder and CEO David Gandler said.

Live-streaming, particularly with sports, “requires someone that has access to the full chain of problems that can take place,” he said.

And fuboTV’s internal handiwork is being parlayed into a new, complementary line of business as a streaming platform provider for other services.

“I think we’re a cross-breed between a Sling-type service and BAMTech,” Gandler said, the latter a reference to the tech services and video streaming operation launched by Major League Baseball’s MLB Advanced Media, which recently nabbed a major investment from The Walt Disney Co. “We’ll be focused on building out a fully automated end-to-end solution.”

SIDEBAR: OTT by the Numbers

A recent sampling shows live sports streaming is driving sizable audiences to the OTT world, but those numbers are still dwarfed by traditional TV viewing audiences.

15.2 million: The number of unique viewers who tuned into Yahoo’s global live stream of the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars-Buffalo Bills game on Oct. 25, 2015. Yahoo streamed that game to most regions of the world, but the game was also available on regular TV (via CBS) in the local Buffalo, N.Y., and Jacksonville, Fla., markets. The game generated 33.6 million video streams, and more than 460 million total minutes of video consumed, with 33% of the audience — about 5 million viewers — originating outside the U.S.

3.96 million: The number of unique viewers who accessed CBS’s live stream of Super Bowl 50 between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers across desktops, connected TV platforms, tablets and smartphones. CBS said viewers consumed more than 402 million total minutes of coverage, and watched for more than 101 minutes each on average. By comparison, the CBS Super Bowl telecast averaged 111.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

2.1 million: The number of unique viewers worldwide who watched Twitter’s first Thursday Night Football live stream on Sept. 15 between the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills. The feed’s average audience was just 243,000, and each viewer watched an average of 22 minutes of the matchup via Twitter. By comparison, 5.4 million television viewers tuned in to watch the game on CBS or NFL Network.

911,000: The number of Sling TV subscribers at the end of third-quarter 2016, according to the latest estimate from MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett. Dish Network no longer breaks out how many of its 13.64 million pay TV subs take the OTT TV offering.

180-plus: The number of live TV feeds offered via Comcast’s TV everywhere app. The MSO said nearly 50% of its subscribers are using its TVE platforms, up from 30% of subscribers last year, and that customers are viewing 10 hours a month of TVE content on average.

SIDEBAR: Struggling to Keep Popular Streams Stable

While OTT TV service stability has been steadily improving, the struggles have tended to pop up during premieres of popular shows or big sporting events.

Among some examples, Sling TV buckled under the strain last August during the AMC premiere of Fear the Walking Dead, and last year during the TBS telecast of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament’s Final Four round due to a rush of signups and the resulting spike in streaming demand. In June, HBO Now, the premium programmer’s standalone OTT TV service suffered a temporary outage when streamers swamped the system to watch the a new episode from season six of hit series Game of Thrones.

Notably, that hiccup occurred after former HBO chief technology officer, Otto Berkes, resigned in late 2014 after the programmer opted to shift gears and work with a third-party streaming infrastructure partner, MLB Advanced Media, after its TV Everywhere service, HBO Go, melted down multiple times during the premieres of GoT episodes and other series. HBO confirmed last week that it has developed its own technology stack for HBO Go and works with BAMTech for HBO Now.

Last week’s DirecTV Now launch got off to a bit of a rocky start. While the speed and consistency of the service seemed to vary device to device soon after DirecTV Now’s debut, the service’s first evening saw subscribers head to Twitter to lodge complaints about login troubles, browser compatibility problems, long waits for customer service representatives and error codes, including false messages that customers had reached their streaming limit. (DirecTV Now allows up to two concurrent streams per account.)

The Chicago Cubs’ historical run to the World Series helped propel Fox Sports 1 to its second straight weekly primetime cable ratings win.

FS1 rode the Cubs’ defeat of the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games of the National League Championship Series to earn its first World Series appearance since 1945 to a cable industry high average of 4.2 million primetime viewers during the week of Oct. 17-23, according to Nielsen.

Fox News finished second for the week with 3.3 million, followed by ESPN and CNN, which tied for third with 2.2 million viewers. AMC, which drew big numbers for the Oct. 23 season seven premiere of its zombie-themed series The Walking Dead, finished fifth with 2 million viewers.

MSNBC (1.8 million viewers), TBS (1.6 million), USA (1.4 million), HGTV (1.3 million) and Discover Channel (1 million) rounded out the top 10.

Fox News was the most watched network on a 24-hour basis, followed by Nickelodeon, CNN, MSNBC and ESPN.

Most Watched Cable Shows During The Week Of Oct. 17-23

Date ShowNetwork Total Viewers

10/23 The Walking Dead                                        AMC                            17.0 million

10/19 Presidential Debate (Live)                            Fox News                    11.3 million

10/22 MLB NLCS—Chi. Cubs-L.A. Dodgers          FS1                                9.7 million

10/19 Presidential Debate (Pre-show)                    Fox News                      9.4 million

10/19 Presidential Debate (Live)                            CNN                              8.7 million

10/19 Presidential Debate/analysis                        Fox News                      8.6 million

10/17 ESPN Monday Night Football                      ESPN                             8.3 million

10/23 Talking Dead                                                AMC                              7.5 million

10/20 MLB NLCS—Chi. Cubs-L.A. Dodgers         FS1                                7.1 million

10/18 MLB NLCS—Chi. Cubs-L.A. Dodgers         FS1                                6.5 million

Source: Nielsen

Fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead last night took to social media to make Sunday's episode of the zombie-themed series the most tweeted TV show of the day.

The Walking Dead drew 306,000 tweets reaching 3.7 million viewers to easily best the 12,000 tweets generated by second place finisher, E!’s Keeping Up the Kardashians, according to Nielsen’s daily Twitter TV ratings.

Talking Dead,The Walking Dead’s live post-show talker, generated 35,000 tweets reaching 481,000 unique Twitter users to finished fourth behind ABC’s Once Upon A Time. Showtime’s Homeland drama series rounded out the top five shows for the night.

Fox’s World Series Game 5 telecast in which the Kansas City Royals defeated the New York Mets was the most tweeted sports event of the day, generating 1.2 million tweets viewed by nearly 7 million unique Twitter users, according to Nielsen.

With the first pitch of the 2015 World Series just hours away, Fox is pretty much sold out for the first four games, although inventory is still being sold on a contingency basis for avails that could result from pitching changes and possible extra innings.

Neil Mulcahy, executive VP, sales, Fox Sports Media Group, said ad sales for the New York Mets vs. Kansas City Royals series are stronger at this point than they were for last year’s series when the Royals played the San Francisco Giant --and that is not just due to the success story of the upstart Mets, he added.

While the New York market is sure to bring in more viewers than San Francisco did last year, and while the Cinderella story of the Mets's rise to pennant-winning prominence may have become one that has captured national interest, Mulcahy said a majority of advertisers were buying in regardless of the matchup. Whoever wins, it will be that team’s first title in more than a generation. The Mets last won in 1986; the Royals in 1985.

“Our World Series ad dollars have been coming in steadily, and I don’t feel the Mets or Royals have had that great an impact on bringing marketers in,” Mulcahy said. “The Mets will most likely help us achieve stronger ratings and enable us to charge more for scatter ads in the Series going forward, but advertiser interest in the Series was strong before the Mets advanced.”

Mulcahy said much of that is due to Major League Baseball and its official partners who are supporting the World Series telecast on Fox, either with traditional 30-second units throughout the Series or by sponsoring special features. 

“Major League Baseball has been fabulous in getting its official sponsors to participate in various aspects of our World Series coverage,” Mulcahy said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

With the San Francisco Giants jumping out to a three-run lead in their first at-bat en route to a 7-1 thrashing of the Kansas City Royals, Game 1 of the 2014 World Series marked an all-time audience lower for the opener of a Fall Classic.

Fox’s coverage of the Oct. 22 contest from Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, which was dominated by Giants starter Madison Bumgarner (pictured) averaged a 7.3 rating and 12.19 million watchers, according to Nielsen fast nationals data. That was slightly below the 12.24 for the first game between the Giants and Detroit Tigers in 2012, and down 15% from the 14.44 million for last year’s matchup between the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals.

Still, Tuesday’s World Series telecast was Fox’s highest-rated and most-watched primetime telecast since an episode of American Idol in February.

From 8:05 p.m. to 11 p.m. Fox averaged a 7.7 rating with 12.8 million viewers, and once final nationals are issued, the network is projected to win the night in primetime among adults 18 to 49. That, according to network officials, would mark its top Tuesday night performance since February 2012.

On Fox Deportes, Game 1 played large, averaging 273,000 viewers the most ever for a World Series game in Spanish-language TV history. That marked a 77% jump from the 154,000 for last year’s Series starter.

Tallying Fox and Fox Deportes, Game 1 drew 12.5 million watchers, edging past the 2012 average.

Kansas City led all markets, posting a 48.2 rating/68 share, the best rating for World Series Game 1 in any market since 2007, while San Francisco registered a 29.3/50.  Sacramento posted a 23.0/37, followed by St. Louis (13.3/20) and Las Vegas (11.1/19) to round out the top five.  

In the first year of its new rights deals, Major League Baseball has sets its postseason schedule, with network coverage that puts American League action on TBS and most of the National League competition in Fox’s camp.

The Fall Classic on Fox broadcast aside, the highlight of the programmer’s playoff presentation is a multicast with Fox Sports 1 of the first game of National League’s Championship Series. FS1 will showcase most of Fox Sports' postseason telecasts.

MLB Network is also in the playoffs with a pair of NL Division Series contest, while ESPN is returning to postseason roster for the first time since 2006, with coverage of the senior circuit’s Wild Card contest.

After Turner televised all four Division Series under the rights pact after the  2013 season, Fox Sports reenters this round of the playoffs after a seven-year hiatus, but the broadcast network will still remain in the dugout.

Instead, Fox is pushing its national cable sports network to the forefront. FS1 will make its MLB playoff debut with up to eight of the 10 National Division Series contests – two are on MLBN . FS1 opens with a doubleheader on Friday, Oct. 3, and twinbills are also slated for Oct. 7 and Oct. 9, with special editions of Fox Sports Live serving as the between-game bridge with highlights, analysis and news.

The first game of the NLCS on Oct. 11 will feature Fox providing the traditional broadcast and FS1 tossing up a more analytical-viewing experience under the JABO (Just a Bit Outside) banner, replete with statistics, sabermetrics and graphics. The numbers will inspire and anchor debate and conversation among Kevin Burkharrdt, Gabe Kapler, C.J. Nitkowski and Rob Neyer. They will be joined by guests via phone or remote video outlets. Fox will also air a potential Game 6, with the balance, including Game 7, on FS1, now in its sophomore season.

Coverage of the 110th World Series -- the 15th straight broadcast by Fox and the network’s 17th overall --  begins Tuesday Oct. 21 in the ballpark of the AL pennant winner by virtue of the junior circuit’s 5-3 win in July’s All-Star Game.

All postseason MLB games aired by Fox and Fox Sports 1 will also be televised in Spanish exclusively on Fox Deportes, which is poised to deliver its most comprehensive MLB postseason coverage ever, with pregame shows, special reports, interviews and postgame analysis on its signature studio show Central Fox.

TBS will begin its eighth consecutive year of postseason coverage with its exclusive presentation of the AL Wild Card game on Tuesday, Sept. 30.  TBS will also be the exclusive television home of both ALDS, beginning Thursday, Oct. 2, and the American League Championship Series. 

Under the terms of the new rights deal, Turner and Fox will alternate league coverage -- aligning the senior circuit with the former and the AL with Fox for the 2015 postseason.

Ernie Johnson (play-by-play) and analysts Ron Darling and Cal Ripken will call one of the 2014 ALDS confrontations and the ALCS.  They will also provide commentary for the Wild Card contest. Matt Winer will join them as a reporter throughout the postseason.

The second ALDS team comprises  play-by-play man Brian Anderson,  Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley and Joe Simpson as analysts. Jaime Maggio will join them as a reporter.

ESPN will present the NL Wild Card on Wednesday, Oct. 1, with its Sunday Night Baseball squad of Dan Shulman, analyst John Kruk and reporter Buster Olney.

The NL Wild Card Game will also be available on ESPN Deportes and on ESPN International platforms in Latin America, the Pacific Rim, the Caribbean and cruise ships.

Should tiebreakers be necessary, ESPN will televise those contests – previously the province of Turner under the old deal – on Monday, Sept. 29.

POSTSEASON SCHEDULE
Wild Card
Tues., Sept. 30: AL Wild Card Game, TBS
Wed., Oct. 1: NL Wild Card Game, ESPN

Division Series
Thurs., Oct. 2: ALDS A, Game 1, TBS
Thurs., Oct. 2: ALDS B, Game 1, TBS
Fri., Oct. 3: ALDS A, Game 2, TBS
Fri., Oct. 3: ALDS B, Game 2, TBS
Fri., Oct. 3: NLDS A, Game 1, FS1
Fri., Oct. 3: NLDS B, Game 1, FS1
Sat., Oct. 4: NLDS A, Game 2, FS1 or MLBN
Sat., Oct. 4: NLDS B, Game 2, FS1 or MLBN
Sun., Oct. 5: ALDS A, Game 3, TBS
Sun., Oct. 5: ALDS B, Game 3, TBS
Mon., Oct. 6: ALDS A, Game 4, TBS
Mon., Oct. 6: ALDS B, Game 4, TBS
Mon., Oct. 6: NLDS A, Game 3, FS1 or MLBN
Mon., Oct. 6: NLDS B, Game 3, FS1 or MLBN
Tues., Oct. 7: NLDS A, Game 4, FS1
Tues., Oct. 7: NLDS B, Game 4, FS1
Wed., Oct. 8: ALDS A, Game 5, TBS
Wed., Oct. 8: ALDS B, Game 5, TBS
Thurs. Oct. 9: NLDS A, Game 5, FS1
Thurs. Oct. 9: NLDS B, Game 5 FS1

Championship Series
Fri., Oct. 10: ALCS Game 1, TBS
Sat., Oct. 11: ALCS Game 2, TBS
Sat., Oct. 11: NLCS Game 1, Fox
Sun., Oct. 12: NLCS Game 2, FS1
Mon., Oct. 13: ALCS Game 3, TBS
Tues. Oct. 14: NLCS Game 3, FS1
Tues. Oct. 14: ALCS Game 4, TBS
Wed., Oct. 15: ALCS Game 5, TBS
Wed., Oct. 15: NLCS Game 4, FS1
Thurs., Oct. 16: NLCS Game 5, FS1
Fri., Oct. 17: ALCS Game 6, TBS
Sat. Oct. 18: NLCS Game 6, Fox
Sat. Oct. 18: ALCS Game 7, TBS
Sun. Oct. 19: NLCS Game 7, FS1

World Series
Tues., Oct. 21: Game 1, AL city, Fox
Wed. Oct. 22: Game 2, AL city, Fox
Thurs. Oct. 23: Travel day
Fri., Oct. 24: Game 3, NL city, Fox
Sat., Oct. 25: Game 4, NL city, Fox
Sun,, Oct. 26: Game 5, NL city, Fox
Mon., Oct. 27: Travel day
Tues., Oct. 28: Game 6, AL city, Fox
Wed., Oct. 29: Game 7, AL city, Fox