The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
