Yankees-Dodgers World Series Game 1 draws largest crowd since 2017
The World Series got off to a good start for Fox on Friday as the game that ended in a dramatic 6-3 victory for the Los Angeles Dodgers over the New York Yankees delivered the largest Game 1 audience for the fall classic since 2017. .
Fox Sports reported that an average of 15.2 million viewers tuned in to watch the Dodgers beat the Yankees at home in the 10th inning. Dodgers slugger Freddie Freeman hit a perfect walk-off home run with the bases loaded. Viewership peaked at 17.8 million at 11:30 PM ET during the final half-hour of the game, according to Fox.
The game aired on Fox Sports’ linear and digital platforms, as well as cable company Fox Deportes and Spanish-language giant Univision, which partnered with Fox for the World Series.
The rarity of a Yankees-Dodgers World Series has increased interest in this year’s MLB championship round. Viewership was up 62% from 2023’s Game 1 between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers. That game did not reach 10 million viewers (9.3 million viewers).
In 2017, the kickoff of the Houston Astros-Dodgers series, which would become an outrageous black eye for the Astros after a sign-stealing and cheating scandal, drew 15.3 million viewers, according to Fox.
In the battle of the West Coast and East Coast fandoms, Los Angeles won by a wide margin on Friday. The game averaged a 19.1 household rating and a 58 share in the LA market. In New York, the nation’s largest TV market, the fall classic earned a 13.2/37 in the same measures — meaning a much larger share of LA TV viewers tuned in live to the game than did Yankees fans in New York.
Fox noted that Friday’s game was the highest-rated Friday night telecast since Game 3 of the 2017 Astros-Dodgers World Series.
(Image: Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman after hitting the game-winning home run)
