- Politics (in focus) others already pointed out

- When sports do their major events has shifted in the last decades or so

- There's no longer a common TV culture.

That last point started more with Cable TV, but everyone still got 'over the air' so coverage on major TV networks usually provided a foundation of shared culture and events. It also provided major news summaries that most busy adults managed to see a bit of. As if any of us with jobs have time for that these days.

There's also the war for everyone's attention on "Social Media" and the Internet generally.

All news is politics news now in the US. Didn't used to be like that. (Dear readers, go watch some old 80s-90s TV news broadcasts on youtube if you don't believe me)

I (an extremely casual fan) forgot the series was on until yesterday's game but enjoyed the final two. I think it doesn't help that these are two 'regional' teams (compared to the Dodgers or Yankees). Good baseball just the same.

Baseball in general is in long-term decline [1]. And of course football rules supreme. I try not to yuck someone else's yum and I'm not the biggest sports watcher in general but personally I find baseball to be boring. There's too many games. They go on for too long. Not much happens. I think the fandom, such that it is, is from older people with nostalgia from when it was a far bigger deal and when they probably grew up playing it themselves. The latter is increasingly being displaced by soccer

[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/714281/football-top-sport-socce...

You read a headline about it on a website less than an hour after it happened?

Both teams are small-ish markets. (Milwaukee is the smallest market.) Neither team has big-name players like Shohei Ohtani or Juan Soto. In other words, this was the series MLB didn't want, especially with the upcoming contracts talks.