If not quite reaching the high bar set last year, MLB Postseason viewership has held up better than one might expect.
The MLB Postseason was averaging 4.375 million viewers across Fox Sports, TNT Sports and NBCUniversal through the League Championship Series, down 2% from the same point last year (4.48M), but officially the second-highest average at this point of the postseason since 2018.
Last year’s postseason benefited from more winner-take-all games, including three in the Wild Card Series, two in the Division Series and one in the LCS. Three of those games aired on broadcast television. This year’s postseason has included only two winner-take-all games, Phillies-Braves on NBC in the Wild Card round and White Sox-Guardians on TNT Sports in the Division Series.
This year’s postseason average excludes two full series — White Sox-Astros and Cubs-Padres in the Wild Card round — that aired on Peacock and NBCSN, figures for which are generally not publicized.
The League Championship Series averaged 5.23 million, down 2% from last year (5.34M), but still the second-highest average since 2018. That is despite neither series going seven games. Last year’s LCS concluded with a Mariners-Blue Jays Game 7 that averaged 8.91 million on FOX and FS1.
This year’s LCS actually topped out with a larger audience, as Dodgers-Brewers Game 1 averaged 10.72 million in a post-NFL timeslot. The full series averaged 7.53 million despite ending in a four-game sweep, making it officially the most-watched LCS since 2015. [Related: Brewers’ sweep of Dodgers finishes at LCS viewership high]
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.
The other LCS, the six-game Rays-Guardians in the American League, averaged 3.7 million on TNT Sports — marking the least-watched LCS since the Rays’ previous appearance in the 2020 “bubble” against the Astros. Viewership declined 26% from last year’s seven-game Blue Jays-Mariners series on FS1 (5.0M).
Half of the series consisted of rescheduled games, most notably a Game 3 last Thursday that was moved up to a 1 PM ET start, the earliest for any LCS game since 1988.
As one would expect, Game 3 was the lowest rated and least-watched of the series, averaging a 1.1 rating and 2.21 million viewers — less than half of last year’s primetime Game 3 on FS1 (2.3, 4.58M). Game 4 was postponed from Friday night to Saturday and averaged a 1.9 and 4.00 million, actually up from last year, when coverage faced “Thursday Night Football” (1.5, 2.96M).
Game 5 was pushed from Saturday to a previously unscheduled Sunday afternoon window, averaging a 1.6 and 3.35 million opposite NFL games — down from a 1.9 and 3.95 million for a Friday evening window last year.
The series finale Monday night averaged 4.3 million, opposite “Monday Night Football” — down 16% from last year’s ALCS Game 6, which aired opposite “Sunday Night Football” (5.1M).
All told, four of six games faced competition from pro or college football, and a fifth aired in an unusually early window. Not surprisingly, the one exception was the most-watched game of the series, as Game 2 averaged a 2.5 and 5.14 million in a football-free Tuesday night primetime window. As previously noted, viewership for that game also increased from last year’s ALCS.
