NLCS: Second-Straight Record Low For Cardinals/Brewers

After Sunday’s Game 1 earned the worst numbers ever for a League Championship Series game, Monday’s Game 2 between the Cardinals and Brewers sunk to new lows.

Game 2 of the Cardinals/Brewers NLCS earned a mere 1.9 U.S. rating and 3.021 million viewers on TBS Monday night, down 47% in ratings and 48% in viewership from Game 2 of last year’s ALCS on TBS (NYY/TEX: 3.6, 5.831M), and down 35% and 32%, respectively, from Game 2 of the 2009 NLCS on TBS (PHI/LAD: 2.9, 4.429M).

Last year’s Yankees/Rangers game aired on a Saturday afternoon. The 2009 Phillies/Dodgers game aired on a Friday afternoon.

Compared to Game 2 of last year’s NLCS on FOX (SF/PHI: 5.3, 8.835M), Monday’s game was down 64% and 66%, respectively.

Not surprisingly, Game 2 ranks as the lowest rated, least-viewed League Championship Series game in history. The previous lows were a 2.1 rating (STL/MIL G1: 2011) and 3.323 million viewers (COL/ARI G2: 2007).

Keep in mind Monday’s game overlapped with the final innings of Rangers/Tigers Game 2 on FOX for nearly an hour.

Of note, the Cardinals/Brewers series is the smallest market LCS matchup since Reds/Pirates in 1990. The St. Louis and Milwaukee markets combined have fewer television homes than each of the top ten television markets — including Philadelphia and Atlanta, two markets whose teams were eliminated in one form or another by the Cardinals.

Having said that, market size is not the sole determinant of ratings success. In the NBA, last season’s Thunder/Grizzlies second round series featured two TV markets out of the top 40 in Oklahoma City and Memphis, but still never dipped lower than a 2.4 and 3.677 million viewers.

Five Least-Viewed MLB LCS Games

Date	Time	Game	Series	Net	U.S. Rating	Viewers (000)
Mon., 10/10/11	8 PM	STL 12, MIL 3	NLCS G2	TBS	1.9	3,021
Fri., 10/12/07	10 PM	COL 3, ARI 2	NLCS G2	TBS	2.2	3,323
Sun., 10/9/11	4 PM	STL 6, MIL 9	NLCS G1	TBS	2.1	3,350
Mon., 10/15/07	10 PM	ARI 4, COL 6	NLCS G4	TBS	2.5	3,803
Fri., 10/16/09	4 PM	PHI 1, LAD 2	NLCS G2	TBS	2.9	4,429

(This year’s numbers from Turner Sports)

Ratings: MLB LCS and College Football Overnights

Jon Lewis

Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter) or Bluesky.

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Comments 2

Jeffrey Nunn says:

15 years ago

Any surprise considering these games are on freaking TBS??? Why would MLB even consider allowing their premier games to be broadcast on a cable network? Even two huge markets, Philly vs LA only pulled a 2.9 rating in 2009 on this station.
- Paulsen says:
  
  15 years ago
  
  I’d say that TBS is perfectly capable of attracting large audiences for MLB coverage — just look at the final games of the Division Series.
  
  Of course, the numbers on TBS are generally not as high as they could be on a broadcast network like FOX. But these Cardinals/Brewers numbers can’t be blamed on just cable. Maybe on FOX, Monday’s game would have had a 2.9 rating. Still terrible (and probably worse for a broadcast net in primetime than the 1.9 is for cable net TBS).