The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
