The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
