The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
