Fox wins with its best viewership in seven years

The Los Angeles Dodgers prevailed on Wednesday night, securing their eighth World Series title by eliminating the New York Yankees in Game 5 in front of a huge crowd.

As expected, Game 5 was the most-watched game of the series with 18.6 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming. That's a 58% increase over last year's Game 5, which reached about 11.5 million.

It's the best World Series Game 5 audience in seven years, as 18.9 million watched the Houston Astros take the lead over the Dodgers in 2017 and ultimately win it all. This is also the most-watched game of the World Series in total since Game 7 between the Astros and Washington Nationals in 2019.

Wednesday night's game peaked around 11:15 p.m. ET with 21. million viewers as the Dodgers cemented their comeback, shutting out the Yankees and erasing an early 5-0 deficit.

Overall, the 2024 World Series averaged 15.8 million viewers over five games, up 74% from last year and the best since the Dodgers-Astros game in 2017. That series spanned seven games, making this year's average all the more impressive since viewership tends to increase significantly towards later games as the series progresses.

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