The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
