The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
