The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 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 also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
