The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
