The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
