Facing less formidable competition than the night before, the second Game 7 of baseball’s League Championship Series was a far stronger draw than the first.
Tuesday’s Diamondbacks-Phillies National League Championship Series Game 7 averaged a combined 4.7 rating and 8.99 million viewers across TBS (8.89M) and truTV (103K) — 9.09 million including Spanish-language coverage on MLB Network (98K) — marking the largest postseason audience outside of the World Series since the previous NLCS Game 7 in the 2020 “bubble” (Braves-Dodgers: 9.91M).
Arizona’s upset win trails only the 2020 game and Yankees-Astros in 2017 (10.0M) as the most-watched LCS Game 7 in the past 15 years (seven telecasts). It easily outdrew the previous night’s Rangers-Astros ALCS Game 7 on the Fox Sports family of networks (6.77M).
MLB LCS Game 7 viewership, past 30 years
Keep in mind Monday’s game aired directly opposite NFL Monday Night Football on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 (18.6M) and Tuesday’s game faced far less competition in the form of NBA Opening Night on TNT (Lakers-Nuggets: 2.84M; Suns-Warriors: 2.71M).
Notably, Diamondbacks-Phillies did not just beat the NBA games overall, but doubled Lakers-Nuggets in adults 18-49 (2.2 to 1.1). There were two postseason games on NBA Opening Night last season (Guardians-Yankees ALDS Game 5 and Padres-Phillies NLCS Game 1), and they both lost the head-to-head in 18-49.
The full, seven-game Diamondbacks-Phillies series averaged 5.34 million viewers across TBS and truTV, up 15% from last year’s five-game Phillies-Padres series on Fox Sports (4.66M) and higher than this year’s seven-game ALCS on Fox (5.05M). With both series going the distance, the complete LCS averaged 5.19 million viewers — up 6% from last year’s nine-game average (4.88M) and the highest LCS average since 2018 (5.31M).
After declines for the Wild Card round and Division Series, the LCS has boosted the full postseason average to a four percent increase over the first three rounds last year (from 3.64 to 3.77M). TBS and truTV averaged 4.6 million viewers for National League coverage, up 8% from last year.
(Tuesday night estimates from Sports TV Ratings 10.25)
