Major League Baseball’s postseason is heading into its exciting World Series matchup with the most-watched League Championship Series in seven years.
According to Nielsen, the two series drew an average of 5.35 million viewers on Fox, FS1, and TBS, the highest since 2017.
MLB reported that Game 1 of the NLCS on October 13, featuring the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers, had an average of 20.6 million viewers combined in the United States and Japan.
In Japan, the estimated average of 12.1 million made it the second most-watched MLB postseason game in the country’s history. The most-watched game was on October 11, when about 12.9 million viewers watched the Dodgers win 2-0 against the San Diego Padres in the deciding fifth game of the National League Division Series.
Fox and FS1 had an average of 5.62 million viewers for the NLCS, which the Dodgers won in six games. This was the network’s most-viewed championship series since 2019.
The ALCS between the New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians on TBS averaged 4.9 million viewers. Game 5, where the Yankees won 5-2 in 10 innings to reach their first World Series since 2009, averaged 5.6 million viewers, which is a 33% increase compared to Game 5 of last year’s ALCS between the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.
The average viewership for the postseason leading up to Friday’s first World Series game between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers is 3.96 million, a 5% increase from last year.
The first Fall Classic in 43 years featuring the Dodgers and Yankees is expected to draw in more viewers after last year’s least-watched World Series. The five-game series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks averaged 9.11 million viewers, with Game 3 setting a record for the fewest viewers ever at 8.13 million.
In comparison, the 2018 series between the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers averaged 14.1 million viewers. Fox and MLB would be very pleased if the numbers could reach the 22.9 million average from 2016, when the Chicago Cubs defeated Cleveland in seven games to win their first championship since 1908.
“I think we’re expecting at least a five-year high. And I think realistically, maybe we can get to an eight-year high. It would be a nice surprise if we did that,” said Mike Mulvihill, Fox’s president of insights and analytics.
“When you think about Fox’s history with baseball, at one time we thought it would be amazing if Boston ever broke through and won the World Series. That happened. And you think, well, what if the Cubs someday won the World Series?
Then that happened. This is sort of the last thing that we’ve never had that we now have a chance to cover.”
