The Tigers and Mariners delivered a classic on the field and an outsized audience on television as nearly nine million viewers watched their marathon Game 5.
Friday’s Tigers-Mariners American League Division Series Game 5 averaged a Nielsen-estimated audience of 8.59 million viewers on FOX (8.73M across all Fox platforms, per Nielsen and Adobe Analytics), marking the largest audience for any Division Series game since Tigers-Yankees Game 5 on TBS in 2011 (9.72M).
Seattle’s marathon win increased 17 percent over last year’s seemingly higher-profile Dodgers-Padres Game 5, which aired in the same Friday night FOX window and averaged 7.3 million.
Keep in mind that Nielsen methodology has changed in meaningful ways compared to last year. Nielsen in February expanded its out-of-home viewing panel to cover 100 percent of markets and as of September has debuted a new methodology adding data from smart TVs and set-top boxes to its preexisting panel. As it is Nielsen policy to compare the new “Big Data + Panel” figures to last year’s panel-only numbers, viewership will generally have a built-in advantage over last year, much less any prior years — most of which came before the company began including out-of-home viewing in 2020.
Nonetheless, the game must have done well enough relative to past years for those methodological changes to result in a 17 percent increase and 14-year high. For a matchup like Tigers-Mariners, pitting large but not massive markets and teams that have generally lacked postseason success, that is no small feat.
In addition, just on the basis of this year’s postseason — which has taken place fully since the methodological changes went into effect — Tigers-Mariners was an outsized draw. Not only was it the most-watched game of the playoffs thus far, it comfortably outpaced the previous high of 7.4 million for Red Sox-Yankees Game 3 on ESPN in the Wild Card round (albeit on cable and opposite “Thursday Night Football”).
The other LDS Game 5, Cubs-Brewers on TBS Saturday night, averaged 5.5 million — up 57% from last year’s Tigers-Guardians Game 5 on the network, which aired in an early afternoon window (3.47M). In addition to airing on cable, the Brewers’ win faced competition from a full slate of college football.
Notably, Cubs-Brewers Game 5 was not the most-watched game of the NLDS. Phillies-Dodgers Game 4 last Thursday night averaged 5.6 million despite airing in a late afternoon window, up 63% from Guardians-Tigers in a similar TNT window last year (3.42M).
The full ALDS on Fox Sports averaged 4.15 million viewers, up 37% from last year’s AL series on TBS (3.02M) and the most-watched LDS in either league since the 2015 NLDS on TBS. That is despite Mariners-Tigers Game 3 having to air on FS2 opposite Yankees-Blue Jays due to a weather delay. The NLDS on TBS averaged 4.0 million, down slightly from last year’s 4.1 million on Fox Sports.
As for the League Championship Series, Sunday’s Mariners-Blue Jays ALCS Game 1 averaged a Nielsen-estimated 5.2 million viewers on FOX (5.31M across Fox platforms, per Nielsen and Adobe Analytics). Compared to Game 1 of last year’s ALCS, which aired on TBS, viewership increased 32% from Guardians-Yankees on a Monday night (3.94M). Compared to last year’s LCS Game 1 on FOX, Mets-Dodgers in the same Sunday night window, viewership declined 36% from 8.26 million — but that game had a direct lead-in from the NFL.
The full MLB Postseason is now averaging 4.33 million viewers, up 30% from last year (3.33M) and the highest average at this point since 2010. That is despite the presence of the Blue Jays, whose Canadian audience — an average of 3.65 million in the ALDS — does not count toward U.S. Nielsen estimates. Again, note that viewership for all prior years is panel only (rather than “Big Data”) and that most of those years do not include out-of-home viewing.
