Game 3 of the MLB World Series offered five home runs by the home club and a dominant pitching performance by Ranger Suarez to the audience.
That was the game in which the Philadelphia Phillies won 7-0 against the Houston Astros on Tuesday.
Despite the attractive on-field product, MLB is still behind other major sports.
NFL insider Dov Kleiman posted some revealing numbers about viewership in America, regarding major professional sports of course.
“Game 3 of the World Series on FOX received 11.3 million viewers. Meanwhile, regular season NFL games get over 20 million viewers on a consistent basis,” he tweeted.
Game 3 of the World Series on FOX received 11.3 million viewers.
Meanwhile, regular season NFL games get over 20 million viewers on a consistent basis. pic.twitter.com/NdyMHemdKN
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) November 2, 2022
It’s a bit sad that a World Series game, the last instance of the MLB season, gets a bit over half the viewers a regular season NFL game has.
MLB Needs To Change Its Strategy
Many MLB fans are still mad about the long negotiations ahead of the 2020 season in the middle of the pandemic and, especially, about the lockout.
History says that MLB takes a year or two to recover satisfactory rating levels after labor disputes and/or lockouts.
However, it’s also hard to compete with football, which is America’s sport by trade.
That’s also why Commissioner Rob Manfred put together the World Series calendar while avoiding Sundays, because football games (especially Sunday Night Football in primetime) tend to get most of the attention.
The problem goes deeper for MLB: the league needs to find a consistent long-term project to slowly start climbing up the ratings table.
Baseball is a popular sport in America: perhaps not at the levels of football, but the league needs to find a way to slowly attract those fans who lost interest and bring in new ones.