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The World Series is upon us, and this one should be a delight: The team with the best record in the National League, the Milwaukee Brewers, against the team with the best record in the American League, the Tampa Bay Rays.

The players are about to take baseball’s grandest stage. Yet this has somehow become a strange national obsession: not how Jacob Misiorowski or Junior Caminero might shine in the series, but how many people might watch it.

Should you care? Not really. Have you ever thought about watching a World Series game and thought, “Hmmm, let me consider what the ratings might be before I decide to tune in?”

Major League Baseball cares, of course, because its owners count on billions of dollars from the sale of television rights, and those rights are worth more money when more people watch the games. And, since the fog of a collective bargaining war has enveloped the sport, the ratings make for an intriguing subplot in the World Series.

This World Series is what owners say they want: less of, say, the Dodgers and the New York Yankees, more of teams from smaller markets that seldom advance through the playoffs, if they even get there. Neither the Brewers nor the Rays have won a World Series.

Yet the ratings for the Dodgers-Yankees World Series in 2024 almost doubled those for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers in 2023, and this year’s ratings should be much closer to 2023 than 2024.

So, in a sport that already generates the majority of its broadcast revenue in national rather than local packages, amid the collapse of regional sports networks, are the owners taking a risk of making less money on the World Series?

Fox currently airs the World Series as the jewel of a seven-year, $5.1-billion deal that expires in 2028.

Ed Desser, a Santa Monica-based consultant who launched NBA TV and helped negotiate the Dodgers’ record SportsNet LA deal, said the value of a World Series featuring teams such as the Dodgers and Yankees goes beyond the large audiences they command because they play in large markets.

“It’s commonplace for people to hate the Dodgers, hate the Yankees — and, to some extent, that’s good for business, because it’s another rooting interest. Anything that gets people to focus their attention is good,” Desser said. “It’s easy to hate a team that’s in a glamorous place and spends more than almost anybody.

“I’m not sure that anybody has an ax to grind against the Rays or the Brewers. Sports is about passion.”

That said, neither Desser nor Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports Networks, believes MLB is setting itself up for a big fall in revenue from the Fall Classic.

For Fox — and whatever other bidders might emerge come 2028 — ratings would be important, but not as much as you might think.

“Does expected audience matter? Of course,” Desser said. “They’re in the media business, and the way you monetize is by selling subscriptions to your channel and selling advertising.

“But, typically, you’re taking a much longer viewpoint. You’re making a deal that might be five, eight, 12 years. When you do that, you have an expectation that some teams get better, some teams get worse, sometimes you get a large market, sometimes you get a small market. It kind of evens out.”

This is the fifth season of the current Fox contract. The 10 World Series berths have been spread among nine teams, with the Dodgers appearing twice.

To a broadcast outlet, Thompson said, financial success in the World Series is not just about ratings.

“It’s about how good the matchup is and how long the matchup goes. The bulk of the advertising is sold up front (before we know the teams),” Thompson said. “Ratings for the series aren’t going to be a huge deal, unless you’re selling time in, say, Game 6 and Game 7, where you can really be jacking your rates.”

Last year’s Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series extended to seven games, attracting viewers amid a dramatic finish and ultimately getting a higher rating than the 2024 Dodgers-Yankees series, even though Canadian viewers weren’t included in that Nielsen count. The Dodgers-Yankees series lasted five games, and the Dodgers beat up on the Yankees when the Yankees weren’t beating themselves.

Even if the World Series itself might be worth less with more lower-profile teams competing, Thompson said MLB could include it as part of a larger package, or dangle it as an incentive for streaming outlets or other new bidders.

He also noted that the latest MLB collective bargaining proposal calls for fewer regular-season games and more postseason games.

“Playoffs are going to get you a premium over regular-season games,” Thompson said.

And, to the extent that postseason ratings might be in decline, ratings for everything — sporting events, awards shows, news shows, dramas, comedies, you name it — are in decline. Only the NFL is immune to lower ratings.

“Big events matter more than they used to, even with smaller audiences,” Desser said. “The World Series is still a big event, and there is a premium for that.”

The three most-watched shows on broadcast television in the week of Oct. 5-11, according to Nielsen: Sunday Night Football (Atlanta Falcons vs. Baltimore Ravens) with 17 million viewers; SEC Football (Alabama vs. Georgia) with 12 million viewers; NLCS Game 1 (Dodgers vs. Brewers) with 11 million viewers.

The top entertainment show that week: Tracker (CBS), with 7.4 million viewers.

The owners will make their money on the World Series, one way or another.

“Even at a lower expectation for audience, there is still going to be that value,” Desser said. “It’s one of the biggest things happening in October.”

Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, still among the most prestigious prizes any movie can claim, “Fjord” aims for both a quiet, subtle power and the directness of a sledgehammer. It speaks to the skill of Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu, along with the star power and acting prowess of its leads, Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, that the film achieves those goals, creating a mix of feelings including ambivalence, shock and dismay over what people will do to one another in the name of a common good.

Having recently moved from Bucharest to a remote village in Norway, a conservative, devoutly Christian couple and their five young children have begun to insert themselves into the fabric of their new community. Mihai, the Romanian father (Stan), is a little intense and gloomy; Lisbet (Reinsve), a Norwegian, is shy but kind, and their focus seems clearly on what they see as a warm, loving homelife.

But when their children are suddenly taken into protective custody over allegations of abuse, they find their world turned upside down. Eventually, the father asks a prosecutor with equal parts anger and exasperation, “Am I on trial for my beliefs?”

The official answer to that question, more or less, is both no and yes. The government’s position is that the children cannot be placed back into a home where they will be harmed, whether that means physical violence or indoctrination in ideology counter to that of the state’s, such as no dancing, no internet and that being gay is wrong.

Based on actual events involving a Romanian family in Norway in 2015, “Fjord” is purposefully designed to make a viewer — any viewer — question their assumptions and predispositions regarding the relationship between personal liberty and state power. While this may all sound a bit reactionary or like shooting fish in a barrel, Mungiu wisely complicates matters.

The filmmaker, a previous Palme winner for his 2007 abortion drama “4 Weeks, 3 Months and 2 Days,” presumably knows that the majority of the audience for his international art-house domestic drama will be more aligned with the liberal, progressive politics of the Norwegian state than the religious, conservative couple at the story’s center. So most audiences will automatically be put into the purposefully uncomfortable position of siding with people they would never see themselves inclined to agree with. It is Mungiu’s sharpest and most illuminating maneuver.

Once the story moves to the courtroom, “Fjord” begins to resemble 2023’s “Anatomy of a Fall” — another Cannes-winning champ released in the U.S. by boutique distributor Neon — for the way in which it allows American viewers a glimpse into another country’s legal system. It comes off as more conversational and slightly more chaotic than what we are used to in our own domestic courtroom procedurals. As the government prosecutor, Norwegian actor Christian Rubeck gives a smug and condescending tone to nearly every word out of his mouth, becoming the closest thing the movie has to a villain.

Having previously appeared together in the offbeat comedy “A Different Man,” Stan and Reinsve keep the story from feeling like a dour exercise. As Mihai, Stan puts across a low-simmering rage at being put in the position of defending himself at all, while grappling with how to maintain what he sees as his natural role of patriarchal control. Reinsve, known for more outwardly dynamic roles in “The Worst Person in the World” and “Sentimental Value,” here conveys a subdued nuance as Lisbet struggles with understanding her place between her husband and her children.

The moment when the couple’s infant child is taken from them by the authorities is devastating, each of them capturing a sense of helpless isolation from themselves, their community and each other.

Special mention should also go to the performances by Vanessa Ceban and Jonathan Ciprian Breazu as the couple’s teenage children, also to Henrikke Lund-Olsen as a neighbor girl who becomes close to them. These young performers are the film’s secret weapon, since in practical, lived terms they bear the brunt of the existential hand-wringing on the part of all the adults. And too often they become an afterthought.

The poster and key image from the film is a smiling snapshot of Mihai and Lisbet with their children, a seemingly happy family. Or are they? For a movie so steeped in ambiguity and nuance, it also often states its case quite plainly, such as when the couple’s lawyer says no one can really know what goes on in another family. The film asks one to look closer, not just at others but also at one’s own accepted opinions, assumptions and preconceptions. But it ends up with an outcome that feels as sadly inevitable as it is heartbreaking — an ethical knot that cannot be undone.

The Super Bowl is coming to Disney+.

The Walt Disney Co. announced Wednesday that ESPN’s telecast of the NFL’s marquee event on Feb. 14 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. will be available to Disney+ subscribers. The company also said Disney+ will carry two ESPN “Monday Night Football” games in the current season.

ESPN is producing the Super Bowl for the first time in its history. The game is airing on Disney’s broadcast network ABC which last carried the game in 2006, and on ESPN and the ESPN app.

The addition of Disney+ makes the game available to casual fans who may not have cable or subscribe to a sports TV channel. The Super Bowl is the most-watched TV event of the year, with audiences exceeding 120 million viewers in recent years.

Streaming platforms are bringing in additional advertising revenue for the networks that carry the game.

In 2025, the Fox telecast of Super Bowl LIX averaged 13.6 million viewers on Tubi, the ad-supported streaming service owned by the network’s parent company. Fox was able to sell streaming-only ads on the telecast at around $2 million for a 30-second commercial. The spots aired in the commercial breaks for local Fox TV affiliates.

Disney is offering advertisers the opportunity to buy streaming-only ads across Disney+, the ESPN app, Hulu Live and Fubo. The company has already sold out the commercial time on the ESPN and ABC telecasts with some 30-second spots going for $10 million.

As a lead-up to the game, Disney+ will carry ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” match-up between the Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 26 and another contest later in the season.

Disney+ has been adding sports to its lineup, with select ESPN college football games and Formula E races now available on the platform.