The exciting extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
