The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
