Ratings for Game 3 of the World Series hit their lowest level after a strong start to the series

After seeing relatively strong viewership for the first two games, the Milwaukee Brewers-Tampa Bay Rays World Series saw a much lower viewership in Game 3, thanks to a blowout and direct competition from the NFL.

Game 3 of the World Series averaged 8.33 million viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes, Awful Announcing has learned. The game is the fourth least-watched World Series game of all time, behind Game 3 and Game 4 in 2023 and Game 3 in 2020.

All things being equal, given Nielsen’s expansion of out-of-home measurement and set-top box data as part of its move to the Big Data standard in September 2025, which has generally increased viewership for all sports, it is possible that Game 3 was the least-watched World Series game since Nielsen began measuring World Series TV viewership in 1968.

However, unlike 2023 and 2020, viewership for Games 1 and 2 of the Brewers-Rays World Series was relatively strong. The first game recorded an average of 12.26 million, while the second game recorded an average of 10.85 million. Both numbers are higher than the equivalent games in 2020 and 2023, which averaged well under 10 million viewers in both years.

This is a good warning against using such a low viewership figure as an indicator of the health of MLB (or any other league, for that matter). The Brewers’ 10-1 blowout victory over the Rays faced direct competition from Monday Night Football on ESPN, which averaged 18.73 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and NFL Network.

Even with the Nielsen changes, the difference in relative viewership between 2026 and 2020/2023 suggests that this low viewership is far more due to the additional competition and results than to interest in baseball or the teams competing in the World Series.

The good news for baseball is that viewership is expected to be much higher for Games 4 and 5. According to several preliminary reports, the 12-inning Game 4 averaged 13.5 million viewers. This figure could further increase with the increase in Big Data figures.

Viewership for these games is certainly helped by the lack of serious competition, with no notable NFL or college football on Tuesday or Wednesday.