The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
