The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
