The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
