The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
