The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
