The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
