The exciting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game 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 Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic 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 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
