The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
