Coming into Game 1 of the 2024 World Series on Fox on Friday night, most media pundits expected the series to do as well as any World Series in recent memory from a viewership perspective considering the Los Angeles and New York markets are involved.
And when you add in an extremely entertaining game on the field, Friday’s game perhaps did even better than most expected.
Fox has released viewership numbers for the Game 1 matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, with an average of 15.2 million viewers tuning into the game.
This marks the highest viewership for a World Series Game 1 since the 2017 series between the Houston Astros and the Dodgers. Predictably, viewership peaked at 17.8 million viewers from 11:30 (ET) to the conclusion of the game, which covers the tenth inning of the game capped by Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam.
Gibby, meet Freddie: MLB delivers 15.2M viewers for #WorldSeries Game 1 ⚾️ pic.twitter.com/EmBjDcF3Ld
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) October 26, 2024
Things look even better when you compare these numbers year-over-year to Game 1 of the 2023 World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks. That game brought in just 9.172 million viewers, a record low for Fox in a series that ended up being the least-watched World Series ever.
The 15.2 million viewers on Friday night represents an impressive but predictable improvement for Fox. But that may not even tell the whole story about just how many viewers may have tuned into the game internationally.
Shohei Ohtani is an international superstar unlike any other player in the MLB today. While we don’t yet have any viewership numbers for the game overseas, it’s fair to argue that the game likely did quite well ratings-wise in Japan and other Asian countries.
If you are the MLB or Fox, you couldn’t have asked for a better scenario than a Yankees-Dodgers World Series from a ratings perspective.
So don’t expect ratings to dip all that much throughout the series. However, it will be interesting to see how well Game 2 of the World Series does considering the game is directly opposite the primetime SEC on ABC matchup between the LSU Tigers and the Texas A&M Aggies.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.