The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
