The 2024 World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers officially kicks off tonight. This is a heavyweight fight. We’re talking Los Angeles vs. New York, Shohei Ohtani vs. Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts vs. Juan Soto, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Gerrit Cole — with everything on the line.

Some fans will complain that two of baseball’s three highest-spending teams make for a boring series, but they couldn’t be more wrong. This is Major League Baseball’s dream. This year’s World Series will produce ratings that we haven’t seen in years, domestically and internationally, and it may even create some new baseball fans, too.

So rather than breaking down team valuations or advanced analytics, here are a few more unique (and important!) things that I’ll be watching throughout the series.

TV Ratings: It feels like most industry experts are estimating viewership to come in around 10 to 15 million for this year’s World Series, but I think it has a chance to go much, much higher, especially if it goes the full seven games. In fact, I would go as far as to say that we could see an average viewership of 20 million-plus. That would be an astronomical number considering last year’s World Series was the least viewed on record at 9 million. However, people are underestimating the storyline. Not only has Major League Baseball seen strong viewership throughout the first few rounds of this year’s playoffs (+5%), but this round has the game’s two most recognizable players (Judge & Ohtani) in the country’s two largest media markets (New York City & Los Angeles). Those two cities alone represent nearly 11% of the entire U.S. TV market — and that’s without counting the numbers in Japan, which averaged 12.9 million viewers for Game 5 of the NLDS between the Dodgers and Padres. For context, that’s more viewers than the game had in America (7.5 million), and it means that 10% of the country’s entire population watched the game at 9 AM.

Fox Brings In The $$$: If Major League Baseball is happy about this year’s World Series matchup, Fox Sports is even more elated. Sure, the network that has broadcast the World Series every year since 2000 would have garnered more political money if swing states like Pennsylvania (Phillies) and Michigan (Tigers) made it to the World Series, but both political campaigns will still be running ads to reach a national audience. And Fox says it has already sold out of fixed positions for the first two games of the series. This means that more ad slots will only open up if there are more pitching changes than usual or the games go extra innings, both of which are possible given the stakes. Fox has been charging brands between $450,000 and $500,000 for 30-second spots during the first five games of the World Series, a far cry from the Super Bowl’s $7 million rate but higher than any other World Series in recent memory. This will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the network, and it could be the most profitable World Series in a decade, with a chance to beat the 2016 matchup that ended the Chicago Cubs 107-year championship drought.

P.S. A few months ago, Fox placed the Rutgers vs. USC football game right after Game 1 of the World Series. The 11 PM ET start is not ideal for Rutgers fans on the East Coast, but Fox was throwing a hail mary that a Yankees vs. Dodgers World Series could keep local market fans around for a football game that otherwise wouldn’t draw a huge number. Well, that matchup ended up happening, and Fox’s Hail Mary will be answered with increased viewership (and an increase in advertising revenue, too).

Record High Ticket Prices: You all know that I am incredibly annoyed with how expensive ticket prices have become over the years. This is sort of to be expected at this point for a tier-one event like a World Series, but this year’s star-studded matchup has brought it to an entirely different level. For example, it’ll cost you at least $1,000 to attend a World Series game this year, whether in Los Angeles or New York, and TicketIQ says the average list price right now is $3,887. These insane prices haven’t slowed down the market, though, as all games will be sold out, and Stubhub says this year’s championship is on pace to be the best-selling World Series in company history.

Big Payout Potential For Players: Some of the aforementioned ticket prices are due to hikes in the secondary market. But tickets on the primary market are still selling for $1,000+, and MLB players benefit from this. MLB uses a pretty complex formula to determine postseason payouts, but the simplest way to explain it is that postseason ticket revenue is pooled together, with roughly 55% of the money going to players on playoff teams. This money is distributed based on performance, meaning the further your team makes it in the playoffs, the more money your team gets. Teams then vote on how to distribute this money internally. Typically, team captains will go into a room once the postseason ends and vote on how to divvy up the money. This includes coaches and players, but it also includes clubhouse workers, and the payouts can get pretty substantial. For example, each Texas Rangers player received $506,262 for the team’s World Series win last year, while players on the losing team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, each received $313,634. This money isn’t a big deal to someone like Aaron Judge, who will get paid $40 million this year. However, both rosters have several key players on minimum deals (less than $1 million annually), so winning the World Series will result in a 50% salary increase for these guys.

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