The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
