The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
