The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
