MLB World Series viewership sinks to new record low
The 2023 Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series, the pinnacle of the sport, saw a dip in TV viewership that broke records for all the wrong reasons.
This edition of the World Series, in which the Texas Rangers triumphed over the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 4-1 victory in the best-of-seven rubber, recorded the lowest average viewership since Nielsen, the media company, began publishing ratings in 1963.
Broadcast on the US network Fox across all its platforms, the World Series garnered an average of 9.11 million viewers with a 4.7 rating.
Out of the series’ five games, only the title-clinching Game 5 managed to avoid setting a record low for equivalent World Series games, pulling in 11.45 million viewers.
One game that stood out for its low viewership was Game 3 – its average TV audience of 8.13 million viewers marked the least-viewed World Series game since 1963.
The prior record for the lowest World Series viewership was during the COVID-19-affected 2020 World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Los Angeles Dodgers, which extended to six games. The first four games of the 2023 World Series still attracted fewer viewers than the corresponding matches in 2020.
This trend represents a continued decline for MLB’s flagship series, with the last four editions comprising the four least-viewed World Series since records began.
Several factors contribute to the subdued interest in the 2023 series. Neither the Diamondbacks nor the Rangers are among the league’s more popular teams nationwide, and they lack major superstar players capable of drawing in neutral fans.
The fact that the average audience failed to reach the 10 million mark is striking, especially when compared to the NBA similarly structured best-of-seven Finals series in recent years.
However, both MLB and the NBA still fall far short of the remarkable figures achieved by the NFL’s Super Bowl – a one-off match – every year. The 2023 Super Bowl, featuring Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, boasted an astounding 113 million live viewers.
