The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
