The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
