The Texas Rangers’ 3-1 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 3 of the 2023 World Series drew another record-low audience for Fox.
Game 3 averaged 8.126 million viewers on Fox, with the Fox Deportes broadcast chipping in another 167,000.
The previous record-low was set days earlier for Game 2 on Saturday, which averaged 8.153 million viewers on Fox and 225,000 on Fox Deportes. Prior to that, you had to roll it back to the 2020 bubble World Series between the Dodgers and Rays.
Monday Night Football, airing on both ABC and ESPN, battered the World Series head to head. Between the two networks, the Lions’ win over the Raiders averaged 15,207 million viewers. The ABC broadcast alone averaged 8.356 million viewers, more than Game 3 on both Fox and Fox Deportes.
Games 1, 2, and 3 have all been the least-viewed ever for their respective game in the series. While Games 1 and 3 were slightly down from the previous record-low in 2020, Game 2 was down a full million viewers.
Through three games, the World Series is averaging a shocking 8.484 million viewers. That’s nearly half a million viewers less than the 2020 World Series, which averaged 8.898 million viewers through its first three games. That series perked back up for Game 4, steadily increased in Game 5, and peaked in Game 6 to boost its average to 9.785 million viewers. This series won’t get there if it ends in five games, and it probably won’t even get there in six (especially with a potential Game 6 scheduled to take place on Friday night). At this point, the only hope the Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series has at not being the least-watched World Series ever is for the Diamondbacks to win two of the next three and take this to a decisive Game 7 on Saturday night.
For whatever it’s worth, the record-low viewership for a Game 4 is 9.332 million viewers and 10.059 million for a Game 5. MLB and Fox have to hope headlines in the next two days don’t contain the phrase “record-low” for the first time all series.
