The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
