The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
