The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
