The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
