The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
