Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate their victory against the New York Mets in Game 6 of a baseball NL Championship Series, Sunday, October 20, 2024, in Los Angeles. The Dodgers will face the New York Yankees in the World Series.
16:54 JST, October 24, 2024
Major League Baseball’s postseason enters its dream World Series matchup with the most-watched League Championship Series in seven years.
The two series averaged 5.35 million viewers on Fox, FS1 and TBS, the highest since 2017, according to Nielsen.
According to MLB, Game 1 of the NLCS on October 13 between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers averaged 20.6 million viewers combined in the United States and Japan.
The estimated average of 12.1 million in Japan made it the second most watched MLB postseason game in the country’s history. The most-watched game was on October 11, when an estimated 12.9 million people tuned in to watch the Dodgers’ 2-0 victory over the San Diego Padres in the decisive fifth game of the National League Division Series.
Fox and FS1 averaged 5.62 million for the NLCS, which the Dodgers won in six games. That was the network’s most-watched championship series since 2019.
The ALCS between the New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians on TBS averaged 4.9 million. Game 5, in which the Yankees reached their first World Series since 2009 with a 5-2 victory in 10 innings, averaged 5.6 million, a 33% increase over Game 5 of last year’s ALCS between the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.
The overall postseason average for Friday’s first World Series game between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers is 3.96 million, which is a 5% increase from last year.
The first Fall Classic in 43 years between the Dodgers and Yankees should also be a boost after last year’s least-watched World Series. The five-game series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks averaged 9.11 million. Game 3 set the record for the least-watched World Series game ever, at 8.13 million.
The 2018 series between the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers averaged 14.1 million. However, Fox and MLB would be happy if the numbers could somehow reach the 2016 average of 22.9 million, when the Chicago Cubs defeated Cleveland in seven games for their first championship since 1908.
“I think we expect at least a record level in five years. And I think realistically we might reach an eight-year high. It would be a nice surprise if we did that,” said Mike Mulvihill, president of Fox Insights and Analytics. “If you think about Fox’s history with baseball, we once thought it would be great if Boston ever broke through and won the World Series. That happened. And you think, what if the Cubs ever won the World Series? Then that happened. This is kind of the latest thing we’ve never had that we can discuss right now.”
