The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
