The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
