Yankees-Dodgers Effect: World Series Game 1 draws largest crowd in 7 years

Freddie Freeman's walk-off grand slam to open the 2024 World Series had the audience it deserved.

Game 1 of this year's Fall Classic between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers drew an average of 15.2 million viewers across streaming services Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox Sports, the network announced Saturday. This makes it the most-watched World Series Game 1 since 2017.

That's a 62% increase over Game 1 of the 2023 World Series, which featured two smaller teams, the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks. This was the least-watched opening game of all time.

Friday's viewership peaked at 17.8 million from 11:30 p.m. ET (around when Yankees pitcher Nestor Cortes took over in the bottom of the 10th inning) to the end of the game (when Freeman hit the first walk-off pitch slam in World Series history). ).

Los Angeles won the local market count battle, earning a 19.1 rating (the percentage of the potential audience that could theoretically be watching) and a 58 share (the percentage of the total audience that was watching TV at the time) over New York with 13.2/37.

That's basically what MLB envisioned when the Dodgers decided their trip to face the Yankees in the World Series. The league couldn't ask for much better than its leading AL team with presumptive AL MVP Aaron Judge and its leading NL team with presumptive NL MVP Shohei Ohtani going head-to-head in a battle of their two largest markets.

The question then naturally arises as to why these are the best ratings since 2017 and not earlier. There are some broader reasons for this – notably the industry-wide decline in television viewership over the last decade and the COVID-19 downturn that hit the sports world in 2020 – as well as some series-specific circumstances.

In the case of 2017, it was another big market battle that pitted the Dodgers against the Houston Astros. At this point, the Dodgers were in the World Series for the first time since their title in 1988 and the Astros were playing for their first title (and, as we now know, were willing to do anything to get it).

However, the 2017 numbers pale in comparison to 2016, when the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland struggled to break World Series droughts of 108 and 68 years, respectively. This game attracted 19.4 million viewers.

Ratings tend to increase as the series progresses, so the 2024 World Series will likely see bigger numbers later. Next up is Game 2 on Saturday (5:08 p.m. ET, Fox).