The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
