The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
