The 2026 World Series gave MLB exactly the kind of numbers it wanted, even if the matchup came with a built-in reminder of how much the Dodgers move the needle.
Fox Sports said the Rays-Brewers Fall Classic averaged 12 million viewers, putting it on pace to match or top the five-game World Series broadcasts from 2019 through 2023. Game 1 led the way with 12,259,000 viewers, while Game 2 pulled in 10,854,000 the next night.
That opening game outdrew World Series openers from four of the last six years: 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Game 2 also finished ahead of the second game in three of the last six World Series: 2020, 2021 and 2023.
There was real appeal in the matchup itself. Milwaukee reached the World Series for only the second time in franchise history, while Tampa Bay entered as the American League’s best team at 98-64. The Rays finished behind only the Brewers, who won 103 games, and the Dodgers, who won 100.
The Brewers and Rays also brought the kind of smaller-market pairing that could have easily tested national interest. Milwaukee is the smallest media market in baseball. Instead, the series drew strong attention because both clubs were chasing their first championship.
Still, the ratings conversation inevitably circles back to Los Angeles.
The Dodgers have become baseball’s most polarizing team after a long stretch of heavy spending that ramped up before the 2024 season and back-to-back World Series titles. Their sweep at the hands of the Brewers in a 2025 National League Championship Series rematch only sharpened the spotlight.
And when MLB and Fox compared this year’s numbers to recent World Series broadcasts, the Dodgers were conspicuously absent from the discussion of 2024 and 2025. That matters, because those two years were among the sport’s biggest TV draws.
In 2024, the Dodgers and Yankees produced a World Series built on two massive media markets and two of the sport’s most recognizable franchises. In 2025, the Dodgers faced the Blue Jays in a series that stretched across an entire country, with Game 7 setting viewership records in the United States and Canada.
Their impact wasn’t limited to the World Series, either. Dodgers playoff games before the 2024 Fall Classic were among the most-watched in MLB history, and their NLCS rematch with Milwaukee pulled some of the highest TV ratings in decades.
That’s the contradiction MLB keeps living with. The Dodgers are used as the face of the argument for a salary cap in the next collective bargaining agreement, but they also help drive the very ratings and revenue the league and its owners want to celebrate.
The sport benefits when interest stays high, whether that interest comes from admiration or from people tuning in to root against the Dodgers. As Clayton Kershaw raised, even that counts.
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