The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
