The star-studded, top-market World Series continues to deliver the best numbers baseball has seen in several years.
Saturday’s Yankees-Dodgers World Series Game 2 averaged 13.44 million viewers on FOX (13.8 million across all Fox Sports platforms), per Nielsen fast-nationals — the largest audience for Game 2 of the Fall Classic since Dodgers-Red Sox in 2018 (13.51M) and a 65% increase from last year’s record-low 8.15 million for Diamondbacks-Rangers.
The Dodgers’ win, which peaked with 16.35 million from 11 PM ET through the conclusion, delivered the largest Saturday World Series audience since Game 4 of the aforementioned 2018 series (13.56M). Going back further, it ranks fifth among Saturday World Series games in the past 15 years.
The World Series is now averaging 14.55 million viewers across all platforms — including a Game 1 simulcast on Univision — the highest since Astros-Dodgers in 2017. A two-game average for FOX specifically was not immediately available.
One might have expected a Yankees-Dodgers World Series to trend closer to the likes of Cubs-Indians in 2016 — which averaged more than 18 million through two games — but in the post-COVID era, that kind of viewership is reserved for football games and cultural phenomena.
By the standards of the current era of television, this year’s Fall Classic already accounts for two of the four largest baseball audiences since the wave of cancellations and postponements that decimated the industry in March 2020, joining the final two games of Braves-Astros in 2021.
Game 2 drew a 17.3 rating and 55 share in Los Angeles, down a few tenths from Game 2 of the Dodgers’ previous Game 2 in 2020 against the Rays, which aired on a Wednesday night (18.1). Game 1 (19.1/58) was also down a few tenths from 2020 (20.0).
The declines in New York are sharper, no surprise given it has been many more years since the Yankees last made the World Series. Game 2 drew a 10.3/32 locally, about a third of the 29.8 the market scored for the second game of Phillies-Yankees in 2009. Game 1 (13.7) had a similarly sharp decline from ’09 (29.7). To say the least, the 2024 television environment bears little in common with that of 2009.
