Watch World Series

The World Series is an annual event held by Major League Baseball to determine its champion. The Series first began in 1903, and, after a one-year hiatus, has been held each season since 1905, with the exception of a labor dispute in 1994. Major League Baseball is split between the American League and the National League. The champions of each league, after the regular season and two rounds of playoffs, meet, with the winner having to win four games.

Since 1947, games of the series have been televised. The teams in 1947 were the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. NBC televised the series in the New York City area, attracting an estimated 3.9 million people. After several years of multiple networks televising the series, NBC had exclusive rights from 1951 to 1976, when they began alternating years with ABC, until 1990. All four networks, including CBS and Fox, alternated throughout the 1990s, until Fox gained exclusive rights in 2000.

Broadcasting for Fox in the series is Joe Buck as play-by-play man and Tim McCarver as color commentator. Buck, the son of broadcasting legend Jack Buck, who also has broadcasted World Series games, is a multiple Sports Emmy winner. McCarver, who is in the broadcaster's wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, is a former player who won World Series championships with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1964 and 1967. Ken Rosenthal and Erin Andrews provided off-field reporting. One unique aspect from the past several seasons has been both teams' managers getting interviewed during the game.

Ratings have gone down in recent years due to the proliferation of cable channels. One criticism by fans has been that the starting times of the games, after 8 p.m., are too late for them and their children. In response, starting in 2009, Fox began several World Series broadcasts earlier.

In 2012, the National League champion San Francisco Giants won their second World Series title in three years by defeating the American League champion Detroit Tigers in four straight games.