(Bloomberg) -- The World Series proved to be a ratings boon for Fox Sports — even if it ended too soon for network executives hoping Major League Baseball’s championship would run for the maximum seven games.
Fox Sports said Thursday an average of 15.8 million people tuned in each night to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees over the five-game series. LA clinched the championship in New York on Wednesday after beating the Yankees 7-6 in a dramatic comeback. About 18.6 million viewers watched Game 5.
The series registered the highest ratings since 2017, when the Dodgers lost to the Houston Astros in seven games. The 2023 championship between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks drew 9.1 million viewers per game on average. The Dodgers and Yankees’ rich histories, their large television markets and star players helped the sports division of Fox Corp. deliver a major viewership bump.
The allure of two big MLB stars, Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge and Dodgers slugger-pitcher Shohei Ohtani, was expected to help draw fans for the series. Game 2, which featured Ohtani alongside another Japanese superstar, Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, actually drew higher ratings in Japan than in the US.
A four-game sweep by the Dodgers would have cost Fox $150 million in lost ad revenue, according to Sportico. Prior to the start of the series, Fox said it sold out its ad positions for the first two games. It had been seeking $450,000 to $500,000 for 30-second spots in the first five.
The Yankees averted a sweep by crushing the Dodgers 11-4 in Game 4. They took an early 5-0 lead Wednesday following back-to-back home runs from Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr., as well as stellar pitching from Gerrit Cole.
But Yankee errors in the fifth inning, including a dropped fly ball by Judge, let the Dodgers score five runs and tie the game. Even though the Yankees retook the lead in the sixth, the Dodgers came roaring back on run-scoring sacrifice flies by Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts in the eighth to win by one.
Both Judge and Ohtani underperformed in the championship. Judge hit his only home run on Wednesday, while Ohtani suffered a shoulder injury in Game 2 that hampered his batting.
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman won the Most Valuable Player award after hitting the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history during Game 1 and by driving in 12 runs over the course of the series, tying a record set by the Yankees’ Bobby Richardson in 1960.
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