The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
