The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
