The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
