The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
