The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
