NEW YORK (AP)--Fox television executives say this year's bicoastal World Series matchup that includes baseball's best-known team should help the network improve on last year's dismal audience figures.

The network was nearing a sellout of ad time just days before Saturday's start of the best-of-7 Series between the New York Yankees and the San Diego Padres.

Among the advertisers are Pepsi-Cola, which is debuting ads for its new one-calorie cola Pepsi One; McDonald's and MasterCard, each of which is featuring baseball's home run king Mark McGwire and rival slugger Sammy Sosa; Gillette; Chevrolet; and Gatorade.

"We are basically done,'' said Jon Nesvig, president of ad sales for the Fox network, which is televising its second World Series in three years.

He said there were a few commercial spots available in the first four or five games and more in the last two should they be necessary. Network executives are hoping the series lasts six or seven games.

Nesvig declined to say how much the ad time was selling for, but two advertising buyers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fox was getting $250,000 to $300,000 for each 30-second commercial.

They said that was roughly the same as NBC got last year for its broadcast of the Florida Marlins' upset of the Cleveland Indians.

Those prices would place World Series commercials below the estimated $375,000 ABC gets for its weekly broadcast of Monday Night Football, but still among the 10 highest-priced shows in prime time.

The trade magazine Advertising Age estimated 30-second network commercials in prime time sold for an average of $151,500 this season.

Although last year's World Series went the maximum seven games, the average audience rating was 16.8, the second lowest ever for a World Series after the 16.4 average for the 1989 series between San Francisco and Oakland that was interrupted by an earthquake.

Each ratings point currently represents 994,000 households.

Nesvig expects the ratings "should be better than last year, but so much depends on the games themselves and if they are close.''

The presence of the Yankees in the series is expected to be a big draw. The team comes from the biggest U.S. media market and is the best-known name in the sport.

The Padres beat the favored Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros in the playoffs but are not well-known nationally. Fox said the Padres should assure a bigger audience in nearby Los Angeles, the second-biggest media market, as well as in other western cities like Phoenix.

The home run chase that saw both the St. Louis Cardinals' McGwire and the Chicago Cubs' Sosa break Roger Maris' long-standing home run record drew exceptional attention to baseball this past season.

But it hasn't done much to boost postseason viewership. Ratings for the first round of the playoffs were up about 1 percent to an average of 7.4 from a year ago. Ratings for the second round were down about 1 percent to 8.5, according to figures from Fox.

Steve Grubbs, a top commercial time buyer for the ad agency BBDO Worldwide, said the excitement generated by the home run race came too late to boost demand significantly for World Series ad time this year. He said most of the ads were sold in June and July while the home run race caught fire in mid-August.

But he said if the World Series ratings rise appreciably, it could boost ad rates next year.

Pepsi-Cola will be using the World Series to launch advertising for Pepsi One, the one-calorie cola that it is showing up on store shelves nationally. The drink is sweetened with a blend that includes the recently-approved acesulfame-K and is supposed to taste more like a sugar-sweetened cola than diet colas do. A key target is young men.

Two Pepsi One ads will debut in Saturday's ballgame. They each feature actor Cuba Gooding Jr., who was the football player represented by Tom Cruise in the movie ``Jerry Maguire.'' In one ad, Gooding uses Pepsi One to get skydivers to leap from a plane and in the other he shows a computer mogul he needs Pepsi One for a more fulfilling life.

McDonald's plans to run separate commercials that debuted earlier this month showing Sosa and McGwire eating hamburgers while the crowd in a baseball stadium clamored for ``Big Mac.''

MasterCard has retooled the commercial it started running during the regular season showing McGwire and Sosa hitting home runs in pursuit of the ``priceless'' goal of hitting 62 home runs in a season.

McGwire finished with 70 and Sosa had 66. The latest version of the ad says the priceless goal was ``making history.''

The credit card company also plans to use an ad in the World Series that ticks off how much it cost to take a group of youngsters to the ballpark but rates the experience of their first game as ``priceless.''

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