The World Series starts tonight. While posts on sports usually go on Right Field on NRO, this one belongs here because it’s really about politics. That’s because this year’s Series features the exciting Kansas City Royals, back in the main event for the first time since 1985. Ratings are bound to be very high in the Kansas City market — and that could shift the Senate race in favor of whoever is buying ads during the games.

World Series air time is quite expensive, but the candidate or outside group that ponies up will have an unparalleled chance to communicate with Kansas voters. Live sports is expensive for advertisers in part because viewers watch the games live, meaning they are much likelier to actually see the ads you’re buying. Ratings for the ALCS were over 30.0 in the Kansas City market, meaning that over 30 percent of all TV sets at any one time had people watching the Royals. This likely underestimates how many people were viewing, since ratings notoriously have a hard time measuring people watching at sports bars or over the Internet. Ratings in the home-team markets in last year’s World Series, St. Louis and Boston, averaged 40.0 over the whole series, spiking to 55.2 in Boston during the decisive Game 6.

A market as starved for baseball success as Kansas City will surely see ratings equal to or higher than those this year. The candidate (or outside group) who pays to play could really end up playing ball in November.