The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
