Baseball's Weird TV Future.

It will affect what your team can spend

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You can’t blame Major League Baseball officials if they’re early-counting their loot from the post-season. The viewership numbers are jumping, and they have every chance to go higher.

Figures released at the start of this week told the story. Through the division series round, MLB’s playoff viewership was up 18% over last year at an average of 3.3 million per game. The division series games themselves pulled in 3.56 million viewers on average, a 14% bump over 2023.

There were some gaudy victories. The deciding game of the NLDS between the Padres and Dodgers last Friday was the most-watched division series broadcast since 2017, with an average of 7.5 million viewers. Even Game 5 of the ALDS, between relative lesser lights Detroit and Cleveland and spot-switched from prime time to daytime to avoid a weather issue, delivered TBS its most-watched division series matchup in a day-game slot in 17 years.

The AL and NL championships, meanwhile, involve big-market draws: Mets, Dodgers, Yankees. MLB is already assured of having either the New York or Los Angeles TV market involved in the World Series, and maybe both. It’s going to be a record payout — good news for the players, too, since their post-season revenue cut, tied to gate receipts, is likely to go up as well.

So why isn’t everybody smiling?