The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
