The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series 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 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
