The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
