The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
