The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox 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 top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
