World Series Game 3 Carries Huge Stakes for Yankees, MLB, and Fox

Officially, Major League Baseball and Fox Sports do not take a rooting interest in anything happening on the field. But there is little doubt that the league and the network are enormous Yankees fans for a critical World Series Game 3 on Monday at Yankee Stadium.

The Fall Classic turns east after the Dodgers took a 2–0 series lead at home, a pair of high-profile games marked by strong domestic viewership for both Game 1 and Game 2—and a broader recognizance of the league’s growth, particularly over the last two seasons.

All that momentum, however, stands materially at risk with Game 3. If the Dodgers win and go up 3–0, the Yankees will be in a playoff hole that only one MLB team in history has escaped, the 2004 Red Sox. Across the NBA, NHL, and MLB, just five teams have overcome a 3–0 deficit in a best-of-seven postseason series. If the Yankees win Game 3, the World Series is guaranteed to go at least five games and the prospects of a deep, competitive series increase substantially—as do the chances of attracting even larger television audiences.

“First two games of the World Series up 63% over last year. Still tracking at a seven-year high,” Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill tweeted on Sunday. “Now just looking for a long series!”

Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is in the lineup for Game 3, leading off in his customary designated hitter slot, after sustaining a partial shoulder dislocation in Game 2. 

The Yankees, however, do have a history of rebounding from 2–0 World Series deficits, including in 1996, 1978, 1958, and 1956, with two of those comebacks coming against the Dodgers. 

Game 3, meanwhile, will be part of the only sports equinox of 2024, with every major U.S. men’s pro league in action Monday night. New York viewership will be particularly divided as the NFL’s Giants will be playing a Monday Night Football game at the Steelers concurrently with the Yankees-Dodgers game.

Ticket Market Crash

The potential for a Dodgers sweep, meanwhile, has prompted a marked decline in the ticket resale market for Game 3 and the other scheduled games at Yankee Stadium. Low-end, get-in prices for Monday night that last week stood at about $1,200 each can now be purchased for about $650. 

Ticket aggregator TicketIQ, meanwhile, said the average resale listing price for the three potential games in the Bronx is now $3,485. While still historically high for a World Series, that figure has dropped by 29% from a comparable $4,875 six days ago. 

Much like the television situation, a Yankees loss on Monday to set up the chance of a Dodgers sweep would undoubtedly depress the market much further. Before any of that possibly occurs, though, hundreds of Yankees fans began to line up outside of Yankee Stadium more than six hours before Game 3, waiting for the public gates to open.