The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
