The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
