The Los Angeles Dodgers prevailed Wednesday night to secure their eighth World Series title, shutting down the New York Yankees in Game 5 to a massive audience.
As expected, this was the most-watched game of the Series, with 18.6M tuning in across Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming. That’s a 58% increase over last year’s Game 5, which managed about 11.5M.
It’s the best Game 5 audience in seven years, since 18.9M watched the Houston Astros take the lead over the Dodgers in 2017, eventually winning it all. This is also the most-watched World Series game overall since 2019’s Game 7 between the Astros and the Washington Nationals.
Wednesday night’s game peaked with 21.M viewers around 11:15 p.m. ET, as the Dodgers were solidifying their comeback to finish out the Series, after the Yankees got an early 5-0 lead.
In all, the 2024 World Series averaged 15.8M viewers through five games, which is up 74% from last year to be the best since 2017’s Dodgers-Astros matchup. That Series went seven games, making makes this year’s average all the more impressive, since viewership tends to increase significantly as the Series progresses to later games.
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 on both teams and the rarity of the marquee East Coast-West Coast matchup.
