MLB Needs The Los Angeles Dodgers In The World Series To Avoid Ratings Disaster
With Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox and Phillies out, LA is MLB’s last ratings anchor.
Major League Baseball seemed poised to have a big World Series matchup that would draw tens of millions of television viewers. Unfortunately, that's not how things have played out. Now, MLB has one hope left: the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers are a huge brand in baseball, and they have the best baseball player on the planet, Shohei Ohtani. Even though American baseball fans might not tune in just for Ohtani, he comes with a huge built-in audience from Japan.
Like most leagues (save for the NFL), teams matter in Major League Baseball. Teams like the New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies and Dodgers have huge fan bases that span the entire country. All five of those teams made the playoffs. However, only the Dodgers remain.
The Dodgers celebrate reaching the NLCS. They are MLB’s only remaining ratings draw this postseason.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Imagn Images)
Obviously, the Yankees draw more than any team. Their loss in the AL Division Series was devastating for MLB. So, too, was the loss by the Chicago Cubs to the Milwaukee Brewers. Had the Cubs won their series, MLB would have guaranteed at least the Cubs or the Dodgers in the World Series.
But they didn't, and now the Dodgers are a necessity.
AL Doesn't Have A Good Option
On the American League side, there's no good news. The Seattle Mariners aren't a team that draws well across the country. Plus, if it's the Dodgers and Mariners, that gives the league two West Coast teams, which is terrible for East Coast fans who are likely to tune out of the World Series. Not because of the time difference, since that won't impact start times, but due to the interest level.
Still, the Mariners are the better option when considering the other choice is the Toronto Blue Jays. Having one World Series team from Canada is not ideal for Major League Baseball, considering Canadian viewers don't count toward U.S. Nielsen averages.
All of this assumes the Dodgers get past the Brewers in the NLCS. Imagine a World Series between the Brewers and Blue Jays? There might not be a worse matchup, from a popularity perspective among American baseball fans, than that.
This is not conjecture. Last year's World Series matchup between the Yankees and Dodgers averaged 15.2 million viewers in the United States (12.9 million average viewers in Japan, even though those numbers don't factor into Nielsen ratings).
The year prior, when the much less popular Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers squared off, it was the least-viewed World Series ever (9.1 million average viewers).
World Series ratings have been on the decline for years. There was a time when the MLB championship series was guaranteed to average 20 million TV viewers, regardless of the matchup. Those days are over. Now, the league depends on big brands making it to the end.
Unfortunately, this season that's pretty much off the table. The Dodgers are the only draw left, and that's why MLB desperately needs them to win the NLCS.