The thrilling extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market 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 eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
