The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
