The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
