The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
