The Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays open the World Series on Friday night at American Family Field in Milwaukee, and however the series ends, it will end with a trophy neither city has ever held.
Neither franchise has won a championship. Whichever team wins four games will cut the list of clubs that have never taken a World Series from five to four.
Two best records, two of the smallest budgets
The Brewers arrive with the best regular-season record in Major League Baseball at 103-59, a franchise record, along with the sport's best run differential. Their payroll ranked 19th in the league at $154.7 million, according to Front Office Sports, and they play in the smallest metropolitan market in the majors.
Tampa Bay won 98 games, the most in the American League, on a luxury tax payroll of $113.2 million — the fourth smallest in baseball and roughly $41 million below Milwaukee's.
That combination is rare. ESPN counted this as only the sixth World Series since the wild-card era began in 1995 to match the team with the best record in each league. The last time two clubs without a title met for one was 1980, when the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Kansas City Royals.
Long waits, different shapes
Milwaukee is in its 57th season, though the franchise started in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots before moving. Its only previous World Series appearance came in 1982.
Tampa Bay's drought is shorter and its October record thicker: this is the Rays' third trip to the World Series, and they reached the playoffs five years running before missing out in 2024 and 2025.
The Rays clinched the American League pennant on Monday, October 19, closing out a six-game Championship Series against the Cleveland Guardians at Tropicana Field. The Brewers swept the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-0 in the National League Championship Series after beating the San Diego Padres 3-1 in the division round.
Who to watch
Milwaukee's rotation is fronted by Jacob Misiorowski, whom ESPN describes as the likely National League Cy Young Award winner. Pat Murphy manages the Brewers.
Tampa Bay leans on closer Bryan Baker and the power of Junior Caminero. Starting pitchers for Game 1 had not been announced.
The schedule
Games 1 and 2 are in Milwaukee on October 23 and 24, with first pitch at 7:00 p.m. CDT. Games 3, 4 and 5 move to Tampa Bay from October 26 to 28 at 8:00 p.m. EDT. If the series goes the distance, Games 6 and 7 return to American Family Field on October 30 and 31.
A ratings question for Fox
Fox Sports carries the series in the United States, and the matchup lands without the names that drove the last two Octobers. The 2024 and 2025 World Series both featured the Dodgers and the audiences that come with Shohei Ohtani; Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees are also absent.
Front Office Sports pointed to the 2023 World Series, which averaged 9.1 million viewers and remains the least-watched on record, as a plausible comparison. There is a counterweight: this year's National League Championship Series averaged 7.53 million viewers, the strongest League Championship Series audience on any network since 2015. Small markets have not kept this postseason from drawing a crowd.
Reporting from ESPN and Front Office Sports.
