The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members 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 additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
