The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
