The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
