The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
