The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
