The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
