Will the Casual New York Market (and Yankees Fans) Watch a Mets World Series?

For the first time since 2009, a New York team will be in the World Series. In what would have been a surprise before the season began, it will be the Mets. While fans of specific teams may not care (admission: as a Royals fan, I also personally don’t care about ratings and whether you watch), the networks most certainly do care about eye balls and viewers. Relatively, having the most popular teams and bigger markets will draw more viewers in a more regionally supported sport like baseball.

While it might seem like that would be a good thing with the Mets involved, it’s no sure thing. The Mets don’t rate as popular as other big-market teams, because of the Yankees factor, when looking at official team page Facebook likes. In fact, there’s not much difference in hardcore support for the Mets as compared to both the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals. The Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, and Los Angeles Dodgers are all more popular. The New York Yankees have six times the number of people who “like” their Facebook page as the in-town rival Mets. (all Facebook data as of Friday, October 23rd).

When the Subway Series was played back in 2000, television ratings were lower than other World Series involving the New York Yankees during that time period (18 million on average versus 20-25 million for the other four series involving Yankees between 1998 and 2003). But, that may be a circumstance where the networks lost viewers from other parts of the country, because you only need one New York team to draw interest.

Both the Mets and Royals are looking for their first World Series title since the 1980’s. Will that be enough to draw the interest of the rest of the country, and more specifically, the city of New York? The 2013 World Series, between two of the six most popular teams in the Red Sox and Cardinals, averaged 14.9 million viewers. Last year’s, between the Giants and Royals, averaged 13.8 million. The last to top 17 million viewers was the 2009 Series that included the New York Yankees.

For baseball reasons, this is a very compelling series. These playoffs–with the exception of the end of the Mets’ romp over the Cubs in a sweep in the NLCS–has been full of drama. The matchup of Mets’ starting pitchers and the Royals’ defense and bullpen make for plenty of strategy and intrigue, particularly in those middle innings.

But that may not matter on a national popularity scale. Will all of New York–and not just the hardcore Mets fans who have supported the team through the thin years–embrace this series? Just as importantly, part of the Yankee factor is not only fans of the team tuning in, but also people that despise the Yankees and are drawn to hate-watch them. Those factors–and a long series–will decide whether FOX gets its highest ratings since the Yankees were in it.