The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
