Many around the baseball world feared the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks World Series might not perform well with a general audience, and it seems those concerns have been confirmed in the ratings for the first three games.
Heading into the 2023 World Series, there weren’t many better stories in sports than the wild rides the Rangers and Diamondbacks created for their fans threw the final weeks of the season andthrough this year’s MLB playoffs.
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Texas offered a fan-friendly style of play as they bludgeoned opponents with their offense en route to the championship series. while Arizona delivered a classic “Little Engine that Could” story as the team that won just 84 games shockingly beat some of the best franchises in the game on a path to the World Series.
Unfortunately for MLB, those fascinating narratives have done little to capture the imagination of baseball fans. While the television ratings for Tuesday’s Game 4 are not yet in, chances are they will be disappointing since the first three for the 2023 World Series have set new ratings lows for the MLB championship.
Texas Rangers-Arizona Diamondbacks Game 3 set a new low for World Series TV ratings
Sports TV Ratings has delivered the numbers following each game and Game 1 had solid results as 9.17 million viewers turned into an entertaining game that went 11 innings and was won by the Texas Rangers. Interest in the first game is understandable, but the two teams have not been able to maintain it since.
Game 2 lost over a million viewers as the average numbers for the Diamondbacks’ dominant 9-1 victory topped out at 8.15 million. That decline continued — while not as drastic — for Game 3 on Monday as the average viewers dipped again to 8.13 million.
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Both games are now the lowest-watched World Series matchups in the modern era and surpassed the previous record of 8.16 million viewers who tuned in for Game 3 of the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Tampa Bay Rays 2020 World Series. Which, of course, took place inside the MLB bubble during the COVID pandemic.
The Rangers took a 3-1 series lead on Tuesday with an 11-7 victory. Game 5 will take place on Wednesday night in Arizona.