The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
