The Brewers and Dodgers produced a second-straight NLCS sweep, but the result was far different on the field — and in the ratings — than a year ago.
The four-game Brewers-Dodgers National League Championship Series averaged 7.53 million viewers across FOX and FS1, up 60% from last year’s series between the same two teams, which averaged 4.72 million on TBS and truTV. Unlike last year, when the Dodgers swept the Brewers as expected, this year’s series saw Milwaukee defy any most expectations and sweep two-time defending champion Los Angeles.
Compared to Fox Sports’ LCS last year, the seven-game Blue Jays-Mariners in the American League, viewership increased 51% from 4.99 million. Viewership also increased more than a third from the Dodgers-Mets NLCS on Fox Sports two years ago, a six-game series pitting the nation’s top two television markets (5.63M).
Despite ending in sweep, the Brewers’ win was officially the most-watched LCS — in either league — since 2015, when the Mets’ four-game sweep of the Cubs averaged 7.9 million on TBS. It was also officially the most-watched LCS on Fox Sports since the last one to air fully on the FOX broadcast network, Red Sox-Tigers in 2013 (7.7M).
Note that out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen estimates until 2020 or fully accounted for until 2025, that this is only in the second year of a new Nielsen methodology integrating “Big Data” from smart TVs, set-top boxes and first party data with its traditional panel, and that Nielsen has recently tweaked its measurement to better account for co-viewing of games.
It is a virtual lock that series like the six-game Cubs-Dodgers on FS1 in 2016 (7.0M) or seven-game Yankees-Astros on FOX and FS1 in 2017 (6.5M) would rank higher under the current methodology.
Nevertheless, it is no small feat that a four-game sweep involving Milwaukee would do well enough for methodology to matter.
Last Thursday’s clinching Game 4 averaged 6.36 million across FS1 (6.1M) and Fox Deportes, marking the largest audience for Game 4 of an LCS since Dodgers-Cubs on TBS in 2017 (6.81M).
The FS1 audience, which peaked with 7.32 million in the final minutes, increased 37% from last year’s clinching Game 4 between the same two teams on TBS and truTV (4.47M). It also increased 107% from last year’s ALCS Game 4 on FS1, which averaged fewer than three million (2.96M).
Game 4 was the least-watched of the series, which topped out at 10.72 million for an NFL-fueled Game 1 window.
Figures were not immediately available for Thursday’s other LCS game, Rays-Guardians Game 3 in an earlier-than-usual 1 PM ET window — the earliest start for an LCS game since 1988.
