The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
