Baseball Wins the Night: World Series Outdraws ‘Monday Night Football’

Score one for baseball. 

The momentum from the star-studded World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees has winnowed somewhat as Game 3 on Monday drew an average audience of 13.6 million across all Fox Sports platforms, slightly less than totals for the opening two games. But perhaps more meaningfully, Major League Baseball prevailed in its only head-to-head competition with the NFL during the World Series, as a concurrent Monday Night Football game between the Giants and Steelers drew an average of 13.4 million on ESPN and ABC. 

The average viewership for Game 3, a 63% increase from the comparable game last year, trailed the draws of 15.2 million for Game 1 and 13.8 million for Game 2. Japan viewership, which has been historically strong during the MLB postseason, has not yet been released for Game 3. 

Notably, the game was also Fox’s best Monday prime-time telecast in more than a decade, beating everything on the network in that slot since Game 5 of the 2013 World Series between the Red Sox and Cardinals. Through three games, the 2024 World Series is averaging 14.4 million viewers and it remains on track as the event’s best total since 2017.

For many years, the World Series went up against Sunday Night Football, and more occasionally MNF, and often had trouble competing against the unparalleled dominance of the NFL. In 2022, MLB tweaked the Fall Classic schedule to avoid playing on a Sunday altogether. But thanks in large part to this high-profile baseball matchup, the tides have meaningfully turned—at least for now. 

The Dodgers did not complete a sweep Tuesday night, but still have a three-games-to-one lead over the Yankees in the World Series after New York claimed a 11-4 Game 4 win. With the offensive outbreak, the Yankees avoided the first World Series sweep since the Giants’ defeat of the Tigers in 2012. 

The latest viewership figures also add to a World Series that has driven record-level merchandise sales. 

Competitive Night

The World Series and MNF games each were broadcast on a night of particularly heightened competition for sports fans thanks to 2024’s lone sports equinox involving the major men’s U.S. pro sports leagues. 

In New York, that confluence was one of sorrow as it became the first metro area to lose MLB, NFL, NBA, and MLS games on the same day as the Yankees, Giants, Knicks, and NYCFC all fell. The Sabres, which are not part of the New York metro area but frequently have fans in common with those other teams, also lost Monday.  

The New York market delivered an 11.6 rating for Game 3 of the World Series, representing a percentage of the market’s TV households, and a 29 share, the percentage of TVs in use tuned to a specific program. Comparable, market-specific figures were not released for MNF.