The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
