The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
