The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
