The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
