World Series Sweep Would Cost Fox $150M in Ad Revenue

If 119 years of precedent are anything to go by, the New York Yankees are cooked, as no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the Fall Classic. And while that’s a bummer for the Bombers, the prospect of this much-anticipated matchup ending in a sweep is the stuff of nightmares for Fox.

In falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 3 Monday night, the Yanks are now in danger of being the first MLB club to get broomed in a World Series since the Tigers fell 4-0 to the Giants in 2012. And while the team’s performance thus far has fallen well shy of expectations—that droning noise you hear is George Steinbrenner spinning in his grave like a rotisserie chicken—a four-game set will cheat the league’s broadcast partner out of nearly $150 million in potential ad sales revenue.

Of course, “potential” revenue isn’t the same thing as fully realized/signed, sealed and delivered cash, and Fox only budgets for the first five broadcasts. If it can be said that money may be left on the table in the event of a sweep, that money is also wholly hypothetical. Given the clubs and markets that are in play, Fox will still come out ahead of the game even if the series ends Tuesday.

According to media buyers, the average unit cost for a 30-second ad in this year’s World Series works out to between $465,000 and $520,000 a pop, a range that applies to each of the first five games. Excluding local breaks and the occasional in-house promo, Fox is raking in approximately $44.3 million in ad sales revenue per broadcast, or around $177.3 million total if the Dodgers eliminate the Yanks on Tuesday night.

While that’s a nice chunk of change, the damage done by a sweep would add up to a huge missed opportunity for the network. Given the historic pricing increases that kick in with a sixth game, and the even steeper lift that a Game 7 can command—the going rate for a 30-second spot in a seventh broadcast would likely average out to around $625,000 a throw—Fox is looking down the barrel of a $147.8 million loss. Scale the projection to jibe with the average duration of 6.1 games over the last decade, and Fox is out around $91.6 million if the Dodgers break out the Swiffers.

Aside from the inevitable revenue hit, a faster-than-expected resolution of this World Series is going to cost Fox a whole lot of ratings points. Game 1 averaged 14.16 million viewers on the broadcast flagship, which marks the biggest turnout for an opener since the Dodgers and Astros teed up the 2017 title tilt with an average draw of 14.97 million viewers. When streaming and Spanish-language simulcasts are tossed into the mix, the first two games of the Yanks-Dodgers series served up some 14.5 million viewers.

Naturally, the ratings climb as a series progresses, which is evident from a glance at the 2017 numbers. After bowing to nearly 15 million viewers, the Astros-Dodgers showdown jumped to 18.94 million viewers in Game 5, before growing to 22.29 million the following night. The seventh and deciding game averaged 28.24 million viewers, or nearly double what the first four broadcasts served up (15.38 million).

Since Fox began broadcasting the World Series, the biggest turnout it drummed up was with Game 7 of the historic 2016 showdown between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians. Chicago’s curse-dispelling 8-7 clincher averaged 40.05 million viewers, eclipsing Fox’s previous record, which was set by the seventh game of the indelible Diamondbacks-Yankees series in 2001. Arizona’s victory, which unfolded in a city still reeling from the terror attacks of Sept. 11, delivered 39.08 million viewers.

While no one expected the Dodgers and Yankees to match those kinds of numbers, the combination of the country’s two largest media markets and all the history between the two franchises promised to set multiyear ratings highs. LA and New York boast 13.33 million TV homes, accounting for 10.6% of the national base. If nothing else, the sheer reach of the two home markets should have given Fox its first crack at topping the 20 million viewer mark since Game 7 of the 2019 Astros-Nationals shootout scared up 23.01 million fans.

Twenty years ago, the Red Sox became the first MLB club to rebound from a 3-0 postseason deficit, as David Ortiz & Co. stunned the Yankees in the ALCS on their way to winning Boston’s first title in 86 years. Thus, while that lone historical antecedent suggests that a New York comeback may not be entirely off the table, nothing about the Bombers’ performance thus far points to a heroic rally.

In the meantime, Fox is taking full advantage of both clubs’ overactive bullpens, as the frequent breaks in the action have pushed the network’s average number of paid units up to around 93 spots per game. In keeping with baseball’s elder-skewing fan base, many of the in-game commercials have been snapped up by pharmaceutical companies; among the big spenders on Monday night included a phalanx of spell-check-challenging brands such as Bimzelx, Arexvy, Farxiga, Wegovy, Skyrizi and Nutrafol. Other key sponsors of Fox’s World Series coverage include Google Cloud AI, Capital One, Chevrolet, Geico and Jersey Mike’s.

Lest anyone allow themselves to get all worked up about Fox’s run of bum luck, it’s worth noting that the network’s fall sports schedule includes the Giants-Cowboys Thanksgiving Day NFL blockbuster, which will set the table for the Michigan-Ohio State game on Nov. 30. Fox also has bragging rights to Super Bowl LIX, for which it is already effectively sold out. At a going rate of some $7 million per unit, Fox is expected to clear as much as $600 million in in-game units alone.

With assistance from Scott Soshnick.

(This article has been updated with a new third paragraph with information on networks projecting ad revenues based on series lasting five games.)