The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
