MLB struck gold this year with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers renewing their rivalry in the World Series, which wound up setting new records for TV ratings.
That was aided by Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto pulling in interest from Japan, but also with a long-awaited matchup between the Dodgers and Yankees. It represented the 12th time in MLB postseason history the Dodgers and Yankees played in the World Series, which is the most-common pairing all-time.
The World Series schedule had games being played late in October. That caused it to overlap with the start of the 2024-2025 NBA season, and in particular there were multiple nights the Dodgers and Los Angeles Lakers both played.
NBA ratings on national networks are down so far this season, which Shaquille O’Neal recently opined could be related to how prevalent 3-pointers have become.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver pushed back on that notion and believes the slow start for the league is merely tied to the World Series and recent stretch of covering the presidential election, via Cheddar:
“I don’t think it has anything to do with the 3-point shot. I think we’re just looking at a couple weeks of ratings. There’s always some unique things. This year, we were up against the World Series, speaking of L.A., the Dodgers and Yankees. My Yankees didn’t make it, but two very attractive teams and they had a good run, brought in a big audience.
“You had a presidential election that was commanding an enormous amount of attention. So I don’t think it has anything whatsoever to do with the style of play on the floor. I mean, on the style of play, I love where our game is right now. There’s always things we’re looking at to tweak in various ways, but the fans are responding.
“We have more social media traffic than any time in our history. It’s a huge global marketplace of interest in the NBA. So as I said, we’re off to a good start.”
Over the past several years it’s been MLB that has commonly lagged behind in TV ratings and overall interest when compared to the likes of the NBA and NFL.
That’s prompted a slew of changes under commissioner Rob Manfred, most notably pace-of-play initiatives and limits on defensive positioning in effort to boost offense.
As the NBA looks to overcome a sluggish start in viewership, they’ll have to contend with the NFL adding Christmas games to their schedule this year. The holiday historically has been one dominated by the NBA, much like the NFL accompanying Thanksgiving.
Both NFL games on Christmas will be available via Netflix stream. Beyoncé was recently announced as the halftime performer for the game between the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans.
World Series merchandise sales
Along with widespread interest driving TV ratings, the Dodgers winning the 2024 World Series was followed by setting merchandise sales records.
Dodgers World Series title products set a record for the first 24 hours of sales following any championship clinch across all sports, according to Fanatics.
In the first 12 hours after the Dodgers victory, sales were 20% greater than those for the team’s 2020 World Series win during the same period. In the first 24 hours following their championship victory, sales were higher than the 2020 Dodgers by +24%, 2021 Atlanta Braves by +43% and 2016 Chicago Cubs by +24%.
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