With the Brewers expected to pose a greater challenge than last year — and thus far succeeding — the sequel of last year’s NLCS got off to a far better start.
Airing immediately following NFL coverage, Sunday’s Dodgers-Brewers National League Championship Series Game 1 averaged 10.72 million viewers across FOX (10.6M) and Fox Deportes — marking the most-watched Game 1 of an LCS since Angels-White Sox in 2005 (15.01M) and most-watched Game 1 of an NLCS since Marlins-Cubs in 2003 (15.57M). (That excludes games that aired in regional windows; FOX aired Game 1 of one LCS and Game 2 of the other in regionalized primetime windows from 2002-06.)
The Brewers’ win, which peaked with 12.4 million in the 8 PM ET quarter-hour, also ranks as the most-watched LCS game of any kind since 2010 — when the final three games (Games 5 and 6 in the NL and Game 6 in the AL) topped the 11 million mark.
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.
Dodgers-Brewers was just the fifth LCS Game 1 in the Nielsen people-meter era to lead out of an NFL game. Compared to the same post-NFL window in past years, Game 1 increased 102% from last year’s Mariners-Blue Jays ALCS Game 1 (5.31M) and even 26% from Mets-Dodgers Game 1 in that slot two years ago (8.5M). While some of the increase over Mets-Dodgers is owed to Nielsen methodological changes, it is no small feat that a series involving the small market Brewers is trending ahead of one pitting the nation’s top two markets.
Viewership increased 157% from last year’s NLCS Game 1 between the same two teams, which aired on TBS and truTV (4.2M).
Last year’s Dodgers-Brewers four-game sweep was a viewership dud, failing to hit the five million mark in three of four games (the exception, Game 2, had just over six million). But thanks in part to the rise of the Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski — who pitched in Game 1 — Milwaukee is seen as a more potent threat to the L.A. dynasty this time around. There was some indication during the regular season that interest was building in the matchup. A Saturday night meeting in August headlined a FOX regional window that averaged 3.08 million, finishing as the network’s third-most watched of the regular season.
Locally, Game 1 averaged a 28.7 rating and whopping 62 share in Milwaukee. Los Angeles turned in a 12.7 and 41 share.
In other weekend action, the deciding White Sox-Guardians ALDS Game 5 averaged 4.4 million across TNT and truTV — down 20% from Cubs-Brewers in the same window last year (5.5M), but up from Tigers-Guardians Game 5 in an early afternoon window two years ago (3.5M). Last year’s ALDS Game 5, Tigers-Mariners in a Friday night window on FOX, averaged 8.59 million.
The full ALDS on TBS averaged 3.5 million viewers, down 16% from last year’s AL series on Fox Sports (4.15M), and also down from last year’s NLDS on TBS (4.0M). Viewership did increase 17% from the last time TBS carried the AL games two years ago.
Figures for the final games of the NLDS were not immediately available.
