The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
