The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
