The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
