The exciting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.