The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
