In a fall that has already seen historically low ratings for the NBA, NHL, Triple Crown and more, it appears that Major League Baseball is the next in line.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s Game 2 of the MLB American League Championship Series (Astros-Rays) averaged 1.88 million viewers on TBS, marking the least-watched LCS game on record, regardless of league or network. The previous low was set less than 24 hours earlier by Game 1 of the same series, which averaged a 1.1 rating and 2.07 million viewers on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Prior to this year, the least-watched LCS game was Royals-Blue Jays Game 5 on FS1 in 2015 (2.58M). [Related: MLB LCS ratings history<\/a>.]<\/p>\n Viewership for both games sank 66% from Games 1 and 2 of last year\u2019s Yankees-Astros series, which averaged 6.11 million on FOX and 5.59 million on FS1, respectively.<\/p>\n It should be noted that Game 1 aired on a night of unprecedented sports competition, facing both NBC\u2019s Sunday Night Football (Vikings-Seahawks: 8.4, 15.08M) and the clinching Game 6 of the NBA Finals on ABC (4.2, 8.29M).<\/p>\n To put the numbers in perspective, no game of the recently completed NBA conference finals averaged fewer than 3.17 million (Nuggets-Lakers Game 2 on an NFL Sunday<\/a>).<\/p>\n The NLCS fared much better despite opening against Monday Night Football. Braves-Dodgers Game 1 averaged 4.20 million viewers on FOX Monday, down just 10% from last year\u2019s NLCS Game 1 on TBS (4.65M) and the most-watched game of the 2020 season. The previous high was 4.10 million for the Yankees-Nationals season opener in July.<\/p>\n As one would expect, Atlanta\u2019s win was trounced by the competing Chargers-Saints matchup on ESPN (10.69M). It was the least-watched LCS game on broadcast since Giants-Cardinals Game 3 in 2012, a day game that averaged 3.90 million.<\/p>\n Going back to the Division Series, Friday\u2019s Yankees-Rays Game 5 averaged a 2.1 rating and 3.72 million viewers on TBS \u2014 down a tick in ratings but up 2% in viewership from last year\u2019s ALDS Game 5, Rays-Astros on a Thursday night (2.2, 3.67M). This year\u2019s game faced Game 5 of the NBA Finals and last year\u2019s game faced Thursday Night Football.<\/p>\n Tampa Bay\u2019s win ranks second for the playoffs and third for the season.<\/p>\n [Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 10.13 a<\/a>, b<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a fall that has already seen historically low ratings for the NBA, NHL, Triple Crown and more,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[80464,79546,5,38401,19489,2328,2304,4,19491,19492,2305,2303,51543,80465,19493],"class_list":["post-625477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-2020-mlb-postseason","tag-astros-tv-ratings","tag-baseball","tag-braves-tv-ratings","tag-dodgers-tv-ratings","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-on-fox-sports","tag-mlb-on-tbs","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-mlb-postseason-tv-ratings","tag-rays-tv-ratings","tag-yankees-tv-ratings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116235414254085651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}