Can the World Series beat the NFL for one night? How Games 1 and 2 could set up a TV rarity

We have something coming Monday that is very interesting, at least to sports media nerds such as myself. The New York Giants face the Pittsburgh Steelers on “Monday Night Football,” which features one team that always draws well nationally (Pittsburgh) and another that draws well when it is competitive (Giants).

But Monday is also Game 3 of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the most-anticipated World Series in years. As The Athletic’s Jayson Stark wrote, “It’s star power. It’s history. And it will reverberate not merely from East Coast to West Coast but also all the way across the Pacific.” It’s also the No. 1 and No. 2 television markets in the United States as measured by Nielsen, the Yankees are the sport’s traditional biggest television draw, and Fox has a unique marketing opportunity to promote around both likely MVPs — New York’s Aaron Judge and L.A.’s Shohei Ohtani.

So on Monday night in the Bronx, the World Series has a rare shot to top the National Football League in viewership for one night — especially if Games 1 and 2 help the cause this weekend.

There was a time when the World Series crushed the NFL in the ratings. Seriously, this happened. Often, in fact.

For example: In the prehistoric year of 1996, the Yankees and Atlanta Braves contested the World Series. Rain washed out Game 1 on Saturday, so the series opened on Sunday, Oct. 20. It was the first World Series broadcast for the still-callow Fox Network, which in November 1995 agreed to a five-year contract with MLB that included the rights to air the World Series in 1996, 1998 and 2000.

Atlanta’s 12-1 blowout of New York still averaged 23.69 million viewers. Game 2, an Atlanta 4-0 victory that went head-to-head with a “Monday Night Football” game on ABC between the then-Oakland Raiders and then-San Diego Chargers, averaged 23.7 million viewers. The six-game series would ultimately average 25.2 million viewers.

But here’s the interesting thing: The 14.0 rating for World Series Game 2 topped ”Monday Night Football,” which generated a 12.0 rating. (Each rating point back then equaled 970,000 households.) The New York Times reported that “Game 2 vied with ‘Monday Night Football’ for sports viewers for just over an hour. From 9-9:30 p.m., the Series generated a 15.7 rating, compared with a 10.1 for the football game; from 9:30-10 p.m., the Series rated a 16.2, compared with a 10.7 for ABC. Only after 10 p.m. did the football game outpace Game 2. Fox’s game ended at 10:11 p.m.”

In short, the World Series crushed the NFL.

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Fast forward to today. The NFL has become the most successful viewership content in the United States, with companies paying billions for media rights. Regular-season games in 2024 on average have drawn between 17 and 18 million viewers, with games in prominent TV windows, of course, doing more. Last year’s AFC and NFC Championship Games averaged 56.1 million viewers between them, and the Super Bowl drew 123.7 million viewers.

The World Series? None of the last four have averaged more than 12 million viewers, and last year crawled to an average of 9.1 million viewers. Only one World Series has averaged more than 20 million viewers since 2005 — the 2016 World Series featuring the Chicago Cubs finally breaking their franchise title drought. That series averaged 22.8 million viewers, including 40 million viewers watching Game 7.

MLB decided a couple of years ago to punt on competing against the NFL on Sundays. Per Sports Media Watch: The 2022 World Series was the first time since 1990 that no World Series game was played on a Sunday. That will also be the case this year (barring rainouts).

But Monday night, it will go up against an NFL game that will air on ABC, ESPN and ESPN+, so the ABC/ESPN simulcast will add extra viewers for football. There is also a ManningCast on ESPN2. Last year’s “Monday Night Football” schedule averaged 17.4 million viewers.

But if things break right, the World Series has a shot to top MNF.

What would things breaking right mean? It would likely include a split of the opening games, something dramatic happening in one or each of those games to get some casual fans to pay attention, and robust earned media heading in.

The last time the Yankees were in the World Series — in 2009, against the Philadelphia Phillies — the series averaged 19.33 million viewers. During that series, Fox’s Game 5 coverage topped ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” head-to-head by 38 percent (17.1 million to 12.4 million).

Also, take a look at this chart, courtesy of Austin Karp, the assistant managing editor for Sports Business Journal:

If you designed a World Series to maximize big-market viewership, this would be the one. I also think two New York-based teams playing on the same night will favor baseball in the New York media market, given that the Yankees are playing for a championship.

Well, not so fast, says Bob Thompson, a former Fox Sports executive who now works as a content consultant.

“Basically, the World Series will have to attract 20 million viewers to compete with the ABC/ESPN/ManningCast numbers,” Thompson said. “When you consider all of the (factors), along with it just being Game 3, I still think the NFL will win the night. If this was a Game 7, then I would go all in with MLB to win the night. But this is still going to be a great series for MLB.”

I reached out to two of the foremost sports viewership experts in the U.S. — Sports Media Watch founder Jon Lewis and SBJ’s Karp.

“I think you will see both games take away from each other,” Lewis said. “Neither will do as well as they would have done unopposed. I could see the World Series game doing 15.3 million and ‘Monday Night Football’ doing 13.9 million.”

“I think for (MLB) to win it has to be 1-1 in the World Series on Monday night, and I think you need a lopsided score between the Steelers and Giants at halftime,” Karp said.

Thompson is working off a 20 million mark; I think the NFL game ultimately draws a little lower. But will it be enough for baseball to slay the mighty NFL for one night? We’ll find out next week when the viewership numbers come in.

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(Top photo of Aaron Judge celebrating a home run during a June game against the Dodgers: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)