MLB Hopes Diamondbacks-Phillies Game 7 Will Spark World Series Ratings Rally
Major League Baseball hopes to build ratings momentum going into the World Series with a strong performance from TBS’s telecast of the deciding Game 7 of the National League Championship Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Philadelphia Phillies.
With both the Diamondbacks-Phillies series and the American League Championship series between the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros having gone to a deciding Game 7, baseball hopes to salvage a lackluster ratings performance so far in the playoffs.
Fox and FS1's October 23 Rangers-Astros Game 7 telecast averaged 6.77 million viewers, topping only the 2020 Astros-Tampa Bay Rays Game 7 as the least-watched LCS Game 7 on record, according to SportsMedia Watch. Overall, the series averaged 5 million viewers, down from last year's four-game Astros-Yankees series on TBS, but the most watched LCS on Fox and FS1 since 2019's Astros-Yankees series, according to Nielsen numbers provided by Fox Sports.
Fox’s October 15 Rangers-Astros Game 1 was the most-watched game of the series with 7.05 million viewers.
TBS's October 23 Diamondbacks-Phillies Game 6 afternoon telecast averaged 4.6 million viewers, according to SportsMedia Watch. With tonight's Game 7 still to be played, TBS’s October 20 Phillies-Diamondbacks Game 4 is currently the most-watched game of the series with 5.39 million viewers, according to SportsMedia Watch.
Total viewing for the opening Wild Card rounds across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 were down 18%, according to Nielsen data, with the four two-game sweeps averaging 2.25 million viewers vs. 2.73 million last season.
The Division Series round on Fox/FS1 and TBS — where none of the four series went to a fifth and deciding game — averaged 3.13 million viewers, down 8% from last year (3.40 million), according to Nielsen.
