The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
