The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
