The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
