The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full 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 performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
