The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
