The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
