President Trump's re-election campaign "ran a commercial" during Fox' World Series Game 7 broadcast last night, according to Angela Doland of AD AGE. The ad's narrator "credits Trump with creating jobs and 'obliterating ISIS.'" The 30-second spot also "attacks Democrats." Trump's new ad "ran just a few days after the president was booed while attending Game 5" at Nationals Park (ADAGE.com, 10/31). Trump campaign Dir of Communications Tim Murtaugh said that the spot was a "seven figure ad buy to run during the World Series and beyond." He said, "It's a national World Series buy 12 months out. We're on offense" (CNN.com, 10/30).
WINNER TAKE ALL: Generally, networks move into a Game 7 with as much as 75% of inventory to sell. After the Nationals beat the Astros in Game 6, Fox Sports Exec VP/Sports Sales Seth Winter exchanged texts with potential clients on Tuesday night. But he knew he would have to wait to make an official pitch until yesterday morning. Game 7s are generally ratings behemoths, so ad rates increase by 15% over a Game 6. Winter said, "During the day, as we got to certain sellout levels, we raised the rate a little bit. We wanted to get the market moving and that was the trigger to do so." By 2:30pm ET, all the fixed ad sales positions were sold out, and Fox' sales staff spent the rest of the afternoon selling contingency ads, which are sold around added pitching changes or extra innings (John Ourand, SBJ Media).
