Playoff television viewership up 20 percent

With the largest television audience in two years watching at home, the Red Sox completed their World Series title run on Wednesday night in Boston, their Game 6 victory over the Cardinals capping a hugely popular postseason.

Viewership for the entire postseason increased 20 percent from last year -- to an average of 6.3 million -- across FOX, TBS and MLB Network, the largest single-year increase since 2009. From the Wild Card games to the Division Series, League Championship Series and World Series, viewership increased for each round, in addition to July's All-Star Game in New York. That had not happened since 2001.

The World Series, which ended with Boston's third championship in 10 years, featured an average audience that increased by 17 percent over last year's Fall Classic -- a Giants sweep over the Tigers. That also was the largest jump since '09.

Wednesday's Game 6 attracted 19.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched Major League game since Game 7 of the 2011 World Series. It also ranked as the night's highest-rated show, just as it had been for each of the five previous games.

The game drew a 55.2 rating in Boston, the highest for any MLB game in any market since the city logged a 55.3 when the Red Sox closed out the 2007 World Series over the Rockies in Game 4. When closer Koji Uehara got the final out Wednesday night, 86 percent of TVs in Boston were tuned to the game.

Game 6 also was a hit on social media, with 8.4 million people seeing posts about the game on Twitter. It drew more than 1.6 million tweets by more than 600,000 unique authors. Of those Tweets, 125,000 came in the five minutes after the final out, making it easily the most talked-about postseason moment.