Milwaukee and Tampa Bay will open a World Series that guarantees a new champion, but the larger history runs deeper than that. The Brewers and Rays have never raised the trophy, and their meeting puts two long-suffering franchises on the same October stage for a rare kind of finish.
Game 1 is set for Friday at 8 p.m. ET, with FOX, FOX Deportes and FOX One carrying the broadcast. For the Brewers, whose franchise began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, it is a chance to end a wait that has stretched across 57 completed seasons. The Rays, who joined Major League Baseball in 1998, are chasing the first title in their own younger but already eventful history.
A rare matchup for first-time champions
This is the eighth World Series in which both clubs arrived without a previous championship. It is also only the second such pairing since the 1921 season began.
The previous modern-era example came in 1980, when the Phillies beat the Royals for Philadelphia’s first championship. Before that, Cleveland won its first title against the Dodgers in 1920.
Most of the other meetings between two title-hungry franchises came during the earliest years of the World Series:
| World Series | Result |
|---|---|
| 1903 | Boston Americans, now the Red Sox, defeated the Pirates |
| 1905 | Giants defeated the Athletics |
| 1906 | White Sox defeated the Cubs |
| 1907 | Cubs defeated the Tigers |
| 1909 | Pirates defeated the Tigers |
| 1920 | Cleveland defeated the Dodgers |
| 1980 | Phillies defeated the Royals |
There was no World Series in 1904. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay now become the first clubs in one of these matchups to have each spent at least 25 years seeking its first crown.
The winner will become the fourth franchise to capture its first championship within the past 10 World Series. The Rangers broke through in 2023, following first titles for the Nationals in 2019 and Astros in 2017.
That recent stretch recalls the 1992-2002 period, when the Blue Jays, Marlins, Diamondbacks and Angels all won their first championships. The only other 10-title span since 1920 with at least four first-time winners came at the start of the live-ball era: Cleveland in 1920, the Yankees in 1923, the Senators franchise, now the Twins, in 1924, and the Cardinals in 1926.
Milwaukee’s long wait carries extra weight
The Brewers’ 57 seasons without a championship place the club 10th on the all-time list of World Series droughts, counting from the inaugural 1903 Series and not penalizing National League teams that existed before the event began. The 2026 season is not included because its ending remains undecided.
That list includes many teams whose droughts came between championships, most famously the Cubs’ 107-season gap. Among clubs still searching for a first title, Milwaukee’s wait would rank fourth.
- The Phillies played 77 seasons before winning their first World Series in 1980.
- The Browns/Orioles franchise waited 63 seasons.
- The Senators/Rangers franchise waited 62 seasons before its breakthrough.
- The Padres have gone 58 seasons without a title and remain active on that list.
A Brewers championship would therefore close one of baseball’s longest original waits. A Rays victory would give a franchise still in its third decade the sport’s ultimate prize after falling short in its first two World Series appearances.
A World Series with almost no October baggage
The rosters also bring remarkably little prior World Series experience into the matchup. Only three players between the two clubs have appeared in a game on this stage.
- Yandy Díaz played five World Series games with the Rays in 2020.
- Dustin May appeared twice for the Dodgers in the 2020 World Series.
- Steven Matz made one World Series appearance for the Mets in 2015.
Those three players account for only eight combined games of previous World Series experience. Excluding the first World Series in 1903, that is the lowest combined total for participating players since the fourth edition of the event.
The 1905 Series had no player with prior World Series experience. In 1906, Patsy Dougherty supplied all eight previous appearances. The 2017 Series also had only three players with earlier World Series experience — Carlos Beltrán, Justin Verlander and Chase Utley — but that trio had logged 20 games before that October.
So this Series will be played not only for a first championship, but largely by players encountering the game’s biggest setting for the first time. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay have brought two fresh stories to the same clubhouse door. By the end of the week, one of them will finally have a banner.
