Too funny. Once I saw the cardboard cutouts in stadiums, I laughed and queued up some re-runs of “Watch the Paint Dry” on Hulu. . Much more exciting
The Los Angeles Dodgers finally tasted victory in October on Tuesday, winning the 2020 World Series. The ratings of the contest itself weren’t nearly as victorious.
Game 6 of this year’s World Series, a 3-1 Dodgers win to clinch the series, drew in 12.6 million viewers, according to the Associated Press. That made it the most-watched game of the series, but also cemented an ignominious record for the 2020 Fall Classic.
The series ended up averaging 9.785 million viewers per game, shattering the record for lowest average viewership in a World Series, according to The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch. The previous low had been 12.7 million viewers in the 2012 World Series, a San Francisco Giants sweep of the Detroit Tigers.
Here’s how the viewership for each game broke down:
Game 1: 9.195 million
Game 2: 8.950 million
Game 3: 8.156 million
Game 4: 9.332 million
Game 5: 10.059 million
Game 6: 12.627 million
Just how bad are those numbers? Let’s put it this way: The previous record low for viewership of a World Series game was 9.8 million in the 2008 World Series. This year’s World Series came in under that mark four different times.
The fact that a six-game World Series set the average viewership low is especially rough, given that ratings tend to get better as a series goes on. The Dodgers fanbase is also sizable enough that you have to wonder just how bad things could have been had a team in a smaller market won the NL.