The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
