The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market 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 last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
