The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
