The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
