The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
