The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
