The exciting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
