Game 3 of the World Series was the least-watched game so far, though still well above the standard set by the last several years of baseball viewership.
Monday’s World Series Game 3 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees averaged 13.64 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes, and streaming. English-only viewership clocked in at 13.21 million viewers. While it was the least-watched game of the series so far, it was the most-watched Game 3 since the Boston Red Sox squared off against the Dodgers in 2018.
Game 3 was up 63% year-over-year versus last season’s Texas Rangers-Arizona Diamondbacks matchup (8.13 million viewers). The game peaked at 14.25 million viewers in the 9:00 to 9:15 p.m. ET quarter-hour. Through Game 3, the Fall Classic is averaging 14.42 million viewers across Fox’s platforms, the best audience since 2017.
For many, Monday marked the “sports equinox,” a day where all four major North American professional sports leagues were in competition. Considering recent history, Fox and MLB made out very well.
Viewership for Game 3 drew to a virtual tie with Monday Night Football on ABC and ESPN. The game between the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers averaged 13.34 million viewers between ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 — a figure that barely beat out the English-language audience for Game 3 but fell short of the combined figure that includes Spanish-language viewership. Last year, MNF drew 15.21 million viewers, nearly doubling Game 3 of the World Series.
Per Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, the NFL has beaten the World Series head-to-head in six of the last seven years, with Game 5 of the Houston Astros-Philadelphia Phillies series in 2022 beating a Houston Texans-Philadelphia Eagles Thursday Night Football game on Amazon being the lone exception.
While down from the first two games of the series, Monday’s Game 3 still ranked as the fifth most-watched World Series game since 2019, per SMW. It’s no surprise given the stiff competition from the rest of the sports world, and the circumstances of the Dodgers’ stranglehold on the series becoming apparent mid-game, that viewership would decline from Games 1 and 2.
Should the Dodgers secure a sweep, it’ll be a huge missed opportunity for baseball to draw truly massive audiences later in the series. Nevertheless, the Yanks and Dodgers have still delivered some of baseball’s largest audiences in recent memory.
But for now, the viewership story is looking like a “what could have been.”
[Fox Sports PR, Sports Media Watch]
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.