The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally 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% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 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 Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US 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 full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
