MLB heads into the World Series on Friday night with playoff viewership down 6% year over year, but it’s still the second-best postseason since 2018. MLB is up 8% compared to the same point two years ago.
Games across Fox, FS1, NBC and TBS/truTV have averaged 4.27 million viewers, down from 4.53 million last year when games aired across Fox, FS1, ABC, ESPN and TBS/truTV. Excluded from this year’s average were four Wild Card games on Peacock, as NBC Sports did not release those figures. That likely would have dragged down the year-over-year comparisons further.
Also contributing to the year-over-year decline were six win-or-go-home games in 2025, while there have been only two of those in 2026. While down from 2025, MLB is up compared to two seasons ago, when the league was averaging 3.95 million viewers headed into the Fall Classic.
The World Series will need to go to at least six or seven games to match last year’s Dodgers-Blue Jays figures, as that seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers. Two years ago, a five-game Dodgers-Yankees World Series averaged 15.2 million. In 2023, when the Rangers beat the D-backs in five games, Fox averaged 9.11 million viewers, which remains the all-time low for the Fall Classic.