The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
