The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
