The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
