The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
