The Texas Rangers’ seven-game ALCS victory over the Houston Astros gave Fox Sports its best viewership for an LCS since 2019.
Over the seven games, the series averaged 5.236 million viewers over Fox, FS1, and Fox Deportes.
The 2023 #ALCS delivered an average of 5.2 million viewers across FOX, FS1, and FOX Deportes.
With an average of 5.045 million viewers, the Texas showdown delivered the most-watched LCS on FOX and FS1 since 2019.Coverage of the #WorldSeries begins Friday at 7:00 PM ET on FOX. pic.twitter.com/fb9GXK4vnY
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) October 24, 2023
Last year, Fox aired the five-game NLCS and averaged just 4.656 million viewers. As the graphic notes, 2021’s Astros-Red Sox ALCS averaged 4.857 million viewers. In the 2020 pandemic-shortened season, Fox aired the Braves-Dodgers NLCS, averaging 4.476 million viewers.
Monday night’s Game 7 wasn’t a smash hit for Fox, however. It averaged 6.92 million viewers on Fox’s networks, the second-least watched LCS Game 7 ever (ahead of just 2020’s Rays-Astros ALCS). It wasn’t even the most-watched game of the series – Game 1 on the previous Sunday averaged 7.266 million viewers, the most-watched ALCS Game 1 since 2010.
In between the two peaks, ALCS viewership for the Rangers and Astros settled into a comfortable zone. Game 2 averaged 4.46 million viewers over Fox, FS1, and Fox Deportes, with Game 3 ticking up to 4.93 million viewers. Game 4 slid back to a series-low 3.857 million viewers, and Game 5 increased up to 4.431 million viewers. Against the NFL on Sunday, Game 6 averaged 5.049 million viewers.
We’ll get to NLCS viewership once data for Game 7 is available, but it’s been an equally difficult slog for the TBS broadcast of the Phillies-Diamondbacks series. Through six games, the NLCS topped out at 5.445 million viewers on TBS and truTV for Game 4 on Friday.
MLB is now looking down the barrel of a Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series, one of those “good for the game, bad for media partners” matchups.
[Data via Sports Media Watch]
