The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
