Even without much in the way of competition Tuesday night, World Series ratings remained mired in historically low territory.
Tuesday’s Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series Game 4 averaged a 4.5 rating and 8.48 million viewers on FOX, marking the least-watched Game 4 of the Fall Classic on record. The previous low was 9.56 million for Dodgers-Rays in the 2020 “bubble.”
The Rangers’ comfortable win, in which they led 10-0 in the third inning, delivered the fourth-smallest World Series audience on record — ahead of only Games 2 and 3 of this year’s series (8.15 and 8.13 million respectively) and Dodgers-Rays Game 3 in 2020 (8.34M). The first four games of this year’s World Series rank among the five least-watched.
After opening with 9.17 million for the Rangers’ extra-inning, walk-off Game 1 win, viewership for the World Series has yet to return to the nine million mark. Prior to this year, only one World Series game on record had ever averaged fewer than nine million, the previously mentioned Dodgers-Rays Game 3.
Ratings decreased 32% and viewership 28% from last year’s Wednesday night Astros-Phillies Game 4 (6.6, 11.81M). Diamondbacks-Rangers opened with a 20% decline in viewership last Friday night and each subsequent game has posted a steeper drop — 24, 27 and now 28 percent respectively.
As goes without saying in the current era of television, even the least-watched World Series games on record are largely dominating the rest of television. Outside of the NFL, no program that has aired opposite the World Series has cracked even the six million viewer mark. Game 4 finished comfortably ahead of the second-place show Tuesday night, NBC’s “The Voice” at 5.30 million.
Game 4 averaged a 1.7 rating in adults 18-49, a third-straight 1.1 in 18-34, and a 2.2 in 25-54 — down 38, 44 and 35 percent respectively from last year (2.8, 1.9, 3.3).
Locally, the game averaged a 19.7 rating and 50 share in Dallas-Ft. Worth and a 12.7/36 in Phoenix. Game 3 the previous night had a 20.3/47 in Dallas and an 18.1/45 in Phoenix.
(Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 11.1)
