A deciding game featuring the star-studded, big market Dodgers delivered the largest Division Series audience in seven years.
Friday’s Padres-Dodgers NLDS Game 5 averaged 7.24 million viewers on FOX, per Nielsen fast-nationals (7.5 million including Fox Deportes and streaming) — the largest LDS audience since Yankees-Indians Game 5 on FS1 in 2017 (7.26M) and the largest NLDS audience since Mets-Dodgers Game 5 on TBS in 2015 (7.38M).
Compared to the previous NLDS Game 5, Dodgers-Giants on TBS three years ago, viewership increased 9% from 6.64 million.
The Dodgers’ win, which peaked with 8.50 million in the 10:15 PM ET quarter-hour, delivered the largest Friday night audience on FOX since last year’s World Series. The network aired WWE Smackdown and college football in the intervening weeks.
The Dodgers-Padres series generated two of the three largest audiences of this year’s LDS, with Game 3 ranking third. FOX and FS1 averaged 4.10 million viewers for the NLDS, up 9% from last year on TBS (3.74M) and the most-watched LDS on any network since the 2015 NLDS on TBS.
It should be noted that the two most-watched LDS games this year — Game 5 and last Saturday’s Mets-Phillies Game 1 — were the only two to air on broadcast television.
Game 5 was just the sixth Division Series window to air on the FOX broadcast network in the past 16 years, joining the aforementioned Mets-Phillies game, a doubleheader of Astros-Twins and Orioles-Rangers last year, and Games 1 and 2 of Phillies-Braves in 2022.
According to John Ourand of Puck, FOX was originally slated to carry Mets-Phillies Game 3 on Tuesday afternoon, but instead pitched MLB on switching that game to FS1 in favor of a potential series-deciding Game 5.
Prior to this year, the last time FOX carried a deciding LDS Game 5 was 2005, when a Monday night Yankees-Angels game averaged 13.7 million.
San Diego led all markets Friday night with a 19.6 and whopping 59 share, meaning that 59 percent of homes using television were tuned to the game. Los Angeles followed with an 11.1 and 41. (It should be noted that 11% of homes in Los Angeles equals a far larger figure than 20% of homes in San Diego.) Kansas City was the top neutral market with a 4.7/15, followed by New York City at a 4.6/15 and St. Louis at a 4.4/14.
