World Series Hits New Low: 9.1M Viewers

• by Wayne Friedman , November 3, 2023

This year’s five-game World Series -- won by the Texas Rangers over the Arizona Diamondbacks -- posted a record low for the big event -- down 22% from a year ago, averaging 9.1 million Nielsen-measured viewers.

A year ago, when the Houston Astro beat the Philadelphia Phillies in a six-game series, the World Series averaged 11.8 million viewers.

This year's World Series was also 7% lower than the previous all-time low in 2020 when the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Rays in six games, which averaged 9.8 million viewers. That year was hit hard -- as were other professional sports -- scheduling and other disruptions due to the start of the pandemic.

This year, national TV advertising spend, according to estimates from EDO Ad EnGage, amounted to $180.1 million, from 582 airings, totaling 4.9 billion impressions.  

The highest-spending advertisers included Geico, Capital One, T-Mobile, Ford Motor and Google Pixel -- ranging from a high of $9.6 million (Geico) to $7.1 million (Google) in total event spend.

This was roughly the same advertising-spend estimate of the year ago -- $182.2 million.

EDO Ad EnGage estimates total impressions at 6.9 billion. 

For this year's final, fifth game, which clinched the series, Fox -- which airs the World Series -- scored 11.6 million viewers.