The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
