The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
