The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
