The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
