The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
