Through the first week of the Major League Baseball playoffs, the TV ratings and viewership for the Wild Card and first games of the League Division Series are on the average higher this year.
The first baseball postseason games on Fox Sports 1 were very good for the network and in particular, Game 1 of the St. Louis Cardinals-Los Angeles Dodgers National League Division Series. As the game went from a seemingly easy Dodgers victory to a Cardinals come-from-behind win, Fox Sports 1 saw its highest viewership in its young 14 month history.
Game 1 of the Cards-Dodgers series on Friday drew an audience of 3.595 million viewers which broke the previous record of 3.526 million which was set in February for a NASCAR event. However, when compared to Game 2 of the Dodgers-Braves NLDS on TBS in the same timeslot last year, the viewership is down 13% from the 4.1 million attracted to the channel.
Earlier on Friday, Game 1 of the San Francisco Giants-Washington Nationals garnered just over 2 million viewers and that was down 16% from Game 1 of the Boston Red Sox-Tampa Bay Rays ALDS also on TBS.
While the numbers are down from TBS last year, Fox is happy with setting a viewership record on Friday and with another epic game on Saturday with San Francisco-Washington going 18 innings and blowing away much of its scheduled UFC lineup in primetime, the network might have a new record again.
As for TBS which is airing the American League side of the players, it has seen a 15% uptick for its viewership, just under 3.9 million viewers for the five games it has aired to date. The average rating thus far is 2.5 and that’s up 14% from 2013.
And with ESPN also setting a record for its lone MLB Postseason telecast this year, the National League Wild Card, averaging 5.6 million viewers with a 3.6 rating, best-ever for both categories.
So overall, ESPN and TBS are up. Fox Sports 1 has set a viewership record on its first day of airing MLB playoff games. The MLB Postseason is off to a fast start. The league hopes it can keep the momentum as it hits its second week of games.
UPDATE: MLB Network also set a viewership record for Cardinals-Dodgers Game 2 with 1.8 million viewers.
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