Fox wins big with best audience in 7 years

The Los Angeles Dodgers prevailed Wednesday night to secure their eighth World Series title, shutting out the New York Yankees in Game 5 in front of a massive crowd.

As expected, Game 5 was the most watched of the series, with 18.6 million tuning in across Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming. That’s a 58% increase over last year’s Game 5, which reached around 11.5 million.

That’s the best World Series Game 5 crowd in seven years, since 18.9M saw the Houston Astros take the lead over the Dodgers in 2017 and eventually win it all. This is also the most watched World Series game overall since 2019’s Game 7 between the Astros and the Washington Nationals.

Wednesday night’s match peaked with 21.M viewers around 11:15 PM ET as the Dodgers were mounting their comeback to finish off the Yankees and erase an early 5-0 deficit.

In total, the 2024 World Series averaged 15.8 million viewers through five games, up 74% from last year and the best since the Dodgers-Astros matchup in 2017. That series went seven games, making this year’s average yet more impressive as viewership tends to increase significantly as the series progresses into later games.

As Deadline previously reported, this was the perfect storm for the World Series to return after a pair of record-low years, given the star power on both teams and the rarity of the East Coast vs. West Coast matchup.