The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
