The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
