NFL Ratings Are Heating Up: Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks Catch Stray

The 2023 World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers was suddenly thrust into the crosshairs on Tuesday night as its ratings were compared to that of an NFL Playoff game.

1) Even we, the baseball diehards, can acknowledge that that’s not a fun stat to be a part of. While we all know that the NFL is more popular than Major League Baseball, no one likes to see that one simple playoff game can beat all five games of a championship series. It doesn’t mean that baseball is in an unhealthy space, but it goes to show just how far down the consciousness it has fallen in comparison to football.

2) There has to be a “weekend effect” to these NFL ratings, doesn’t there? The Chiefs and Bills game began at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday and spent a lot of its time in primetime, on a weekend. While not every World Series game was played during the week, many of them were, which has to be tougher to accumulate ratings. It’s both a work night and a school night.

3) The World Series didn’t have the “Taylor Swift” effect, either. Whether you can’t stand her presence or not, it’s fairly undeniable that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have helped make football reach a new audience in 2023-2024. Baseball didn’t have that.

4) The World Series was between newfound contenders, whereas the Chiefs and Bills was played amongst established contenders. Both Arizona and Texas had lost 100 games or more in the two years leading up to the World Series, so most fans weren’t casually aware of those teams. The Chiefs are a two-time Super Bowl winner in the Patrick Mahomes era and the Bills have been relevant for the last five years or so with Josh Allen at the helm.

Either way, baseball will get its shot in the sun again soon. Spring training begins in less than three weeks.