The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
