World Series beats football for second year in a row

The 2017 World Series has delivered five close games for the Fox network, a record number of home runs and a ratings victory over football, the most-watched sport in the U.S.

The Houston Astros’ fifth game victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, a 13-12 slugfest that went into extra innings, drew more viewers to Fox than Sunday Night Football on NBC, the second year in a row that Major League Baseball’s World Series has topped football’s most-watched prime-time broadcast.

While the popularity of the series means solid advertising sales for Fox, this year’s contest has little chance of surpassing the 2016 series ratings, in which the Chicago Cubs ended a 108-year title drought by beating the Cleveland Indians.

Last year’s audience was the largest in 12 years.

Still, the 2017 World Series is being viewed by 20 percent of people watching TV through the first five games, according to Fox.

World Series viewership peaked in 1986, and no series has averaged more than 30 million viewers a game since 1992. Game six is scheduled for Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Football has surged in popularity since then, but the sport has suffered viewership declines two years in a row, a headache for the league and media companies that air the games. Baseball, meanwhile, has provided two consecutive thrillers in the fall classic.