The presence of the New York Yankees should boost the ratings for the ALCS to the highest level since 2004.
The Yankees/Angels ALCS marks the Yankees’ first appearance in the League Championship Series since ’04. The ’04 ALCS, which the Yankees lost in 7 games to the Red Sox, averaged a whopping 11.7 rating on FOX — including an astronomical 19.4 for Game 7.
To put those numbers in perspective, the ’04 Yankees/Red Sox ALCS averaged a higher rating than any World Series in the past four years. The highest rated LCS — AL or NL — since ’04 averaged a pedestrian-by-comparison 7.4 (Red Sox/Indians, ’07).
Certainly, Yankees/Angels will be hard pressed to match Yankees/Red Sox. Still, previous Yankees/Angels playoff meetings have drawn strong numbers.
In ’05, the Angels’ five-game win over the Yankees in the Division Series averaged a 6.3 rating on FOX and ESPN. The three games of the series on FOX averaged a 7.7 rating, including the deciding Game 5 — which drew an 8.9, the highest rating for a Division Series game in the past six years. The ’02 Division Series meeting between the teams averaged a 5.6 rating, including a 6.4 for three games on FOX.
The League Championship Series typically attracts a larger audience than the Division Series. Even accounting for baseball’s ratings erosion since ’05, the numbers for the Yankees/Angels ALCS should top their previous playoff meetings — and the series should have little difficulty topping the 7.4 for Red Sox/Indians if it goes six or seven games.
At the very least, Yankees/Angels appears to be a lock to easily surpass the ratings for last year’s Rays/Red Sox ALCS on TBS (4.6, 7.4 mil), and last year’s Phillies/Dodgers NLCS on FOX (4.8, 7.4 mil).
In the National League, the Phillies/Dodgers series seems like a solid draw on paper — the series is a rematch of last year’s NLCS, and features the defending World Series champions facing off against familiar faces Manny Ramirez and Joe Torre. However, last year’s five-game Phillies/Dodgers NLCS was the least-viewed ever on broadcast (7.4 million viewers), and one would imagine that the numbers would go even lower on cable.
That being said, with sporting events from the NBA to the NFL to college football drawing record numbers on cable this year, there is every possibility that a long series could come close to or even surpass last year’s numbers. And even if not, there is little doubt the series will surpass the 2.8 and 4.3 million viewers for the ’07 NLCS on TBS.
Overall, with the LCS featuring three of the top four markets (#1 New York, #2 Los Angeles and #4 Philadelphia), Major League Baseball appears to be in perfect position to have its strongest League Championship Series in several years. The only potential fly in the ointment would be if the trend of short series — three of the Division Series were sweeps — continues.
