The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
