The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
