CHICAGO — The Cubs winning their first World Series in more than a century turned back the clock for baseball on television, giving the sport its biggest audience in 25 years with Wednesday night’s Game 7 victory.

Their 8-7, 10-inning triumph over the Indians on Fox averaged a whopping 40 million viewers, according to Nielsen estimates, which makes it the most watched World Series game since 1991.

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At a time when there were far fewer viewing options, the Twins’ 10-inning Game 7 triumph over the Braves that year drew an averaged 50.3 million.

And Wednesday night’s victory for the Cubs might have done even better if not for the 17-minute rain delay with the game tied 6-6 after nine innings.

The audience appears to have peaked at around 49.9 million before umpires ordered the tarp rolled out at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, and roughly 7 million fewer viewers were tuned in when the game resumed.

Here in the Chicago TV market, Game 7 averaged more than 3.2 million viewers from 7 p.m. to midnight.

The historic victory for the Cubs, playing in their first World Series since 1945 and earning their first championship since 1908, averaged a 51.5 household rating. That means on average it was on in 51.5 percent of Chicago-area homes or watched by about 1.78 million households.

Among those households in the Chicago market watching television, almost three out of four — 72 percent — had the game on in any quarter hour. Between 11:45 p.m. and midnight, as Game 7 was ending and the Cubs’ celebration began, about 82 percent of all local homes watching TV had the game on.

Nationally, this year’s World Series is estimated to have averaged 23.4 million viewers, the most since Theo Epstein’s 2004 Boston Red Sox ended the franchise’s 86 years without a World Series title in a four-game sweep of the Cardinals.

To give an idea of just how much of a surge Epstein’s Cubs helped create, last year’s Royals-Mets World Series averaged just 14.7 million viewers over five games.

That the Indians were hoping to end their own 68-year run without a championship surely didn’t lessen interest.

The only sporting events this year to average more viewers nationally than the Cubs and Indians’ finale this year have been the Super Bowl (which averaged 111.9 million viewers), the AFC title game (53.5 million) and NFC championship (45.7 million).

Another reference point: The Academy Awards in February averaged 34.4 million viewers, though that represents an eight-year low for the awards show.

All told, it appears 115 million people saw at least some of the Cubs-Indians World Series over the seven games.

For the Cubs, locally, the previous high-water household ratings mark was in the 2003 National League Championship Series loss to the Marlins. Game 6 of that playoff earned a 44.5 and Game 7 a 47.1 in the Chicago market.

Game 7’s victory over the Indians outdrew the Bears’ 2007 Super Bowl XLI loss here, with that Colts triumph drawing a 50.2 Chicago-area household rating.

Nothing, however, comes close to the Bears’ 63.1 local household rating for their 1986 Super Bowl XX rout of the Patriots.

The Bulls’ 1997 and 1998 NBA title clinchers had local household ratings of 53.1 and 52.1, respectively.

The 2005 White Sox decisive fourth game of their World Series sweep of the Astros, ending 88 years of frustration on the South Side, had a household rating of 42.5.

The top-rated Blackhawks game locally is their decisive Game 6 Stanley Cup Final victory over the Lightning in 2015, which drew a 41.0.