MLB and Television: A Mixed Bag in 2023

With the 2023 season in the books, let’s take a look at the evolving situation between Major League Baseball and national and local television. The results from 2023 were mixed, and for several teams, the future is cloudy.

World Series Television Audience

This year’s World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks drew the fewest viewers of any Fall Classic in history. The 2023 Series averaged 9.11 million viewers (peaking at 11.45 million during Game Five), lower than the 2020 matchup between the Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angels Dodgers (9.95 million average), according to SportsProMedia.com. Viewership in 2023 was 23% lower than 2022 when the Phillies took on the Astros.

Fox, which aired the World Series, was expectedly disappointed with the low number of people who tuned in.

“I think it’s a good thing for the health of baseball to have new pennant winners and new champions, new teams playing in the World Series. You don’t want it to be the same market and the same brands every year,” Mike Mulvihill, Fox executive vice president, head of strategy and analytics told the Associated Press.

“But I admit it is difficult for ratings in the short term when you’ve got some brands paired up that don’t really have traditional national boards.”

While the World Series used to draw around 40 million viewers annually, it’s important to note that things are quite different in the network television world than they were as recently as twenty years ago. People have more entertainment options, primarily because of streaming services like Apple TV and Netflix. Audiences for all network television programming (except the NFL) are down in the current era.

For example, the highest-rated television show (other than the World Series) the week of October 30 was The Golden Bachelor, which drew just over four million viewers. Contrast that to Everybody Loves Raymond in the early 2000s, which averaged an audience of over 20 million, and The Big Bang Theory’s 23 million average during the 2015-2016 season.

The World Series won its time slot on October 31 and November 1, with no NFL games airing. However, winning the time slot is a minute victory in 2023, and the smaller audience this year is below expectations after MLB had a good year in many respects.

Local Television Did Well

More people watched regular-season baseball in 2023 than in recent years, and the turnstiles were busier. MLB attendance was up 9.6% over 2022, and 17 teams of 29 (data for the Blue Jays was unavailable) had larger television audiences. Per the Sports Business Journal, nine teams saw their local viewership increase by at least 25% in 2023. Of those nine, six made the playoffs, and just two teams were eliminated from the playoff race in the final week of the season.

The Chicago Cubs were one of the teams in contention for a postseason spot during the season’s last week, and the Cubs saw a whopping 34% increase in local viewership in 2023. The Cubs are one of eleven teams broadcast by Bally affiliates, and the future of Bally Sports and MLB is, at best, questionable.

MLB and Bally Sports

Diamond, the parent company of Bally Sports, filed for bankruptcy last year. That led Bally to stop broadcasting San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks games mid-season. MLB stepped in and broadcasted the games, but as of now, Bally has not informed MLB which teams it intends to continue to cover. That puts teams in a difficult spot with the free-agent spending season upon us, as an important revenue stream is undefined.

Evan Drellich wrote about the Bally situation recently in The Athletic.

“I don’t know about us specifically,” said Matt Arnold, general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, when asked about the impact on payroll. “But it’s certainly daunting for the industry. We just have to make sure we, as an industry, are aligned with the best ways to generate revenue. … It’s certainly a challenge in our industry for sure, especially in the smallest market in the league.”

The Minnesota Twins’ contract with Bally has expired.

“There’s a lack of clarity on the TV revenue,” Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said in October, before the planned payroll trim became public. “That’s a fact, that’s no secret to anybody. So I think that that plays a role, you know, just like all of our revenue sources play a role in some degree.”

MLB has anticipated the changing model of coverage by regional sports networks. Many believe that baseball prefers to see local contracts expire. The regional networks’ contracts allow them to control their markets, so if you live in what MLB defines as a local market, cable and satellite can carry only the team that owns that market. The Cubs are a great example. Their market covers several states, so only their games can be broadcast, and even if a provider chooses not to carry them, people in the market cannot get access to other teams unless they pay for a full package on MLB Extra Innings or MLB.TV.

Rob Manfred has stated that he’d like to make all MLB content available for fans to purchase as they wish (team-by-team, without having to buy the full slate of games), regardless of geography. The path forward is through streaming, which is why we see games on Apple TV and Peacock. MLB is trying to perfect the delivery model to offer it more broadly in the near future. Of course, it will cost fans money, and teams will make money. However, it no longer makes sense to limit the choices fans have based on geography. The game will not grow that way.

The Mets are one of a handful of teams that have an ownership interest their regional sports network. The Mets now stream SNY on the app so fans can take the games with them on the go. That’s one way to encourage fan loyalty, and it’s an example of good marketing by bringing content to the consumer in a variety of ways.

We may never see 40 million people watch a World Series game again. That’s not necessarily a problem. The important thing for MLB is to ensure consumers can access the content they want, when and where they want it. Baseball is doing just fine now, and with continued wise marketing, the game will continue to prosper into the future.