The Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series had record-setting ratings. Here’s what it means

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Two years ago, the Dodgers set out to become Japan’s team. The Toronto Blue Jays are Canada’s team.

When the two teams collided in this year’s World Series, the ratings hit the stratosphere.

Major League Baseball announced that the final game of the World Series, Game 7, drew a record 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan. This makes it the most-watched MLB game in over three decades, since the final game of the 1991 World Series.

The series drew an average of 34 million viewers across the three countries it aired in, marking the biggest World Series audience worldwide since 1992. Viewership outside the U.S. was record-breaking, and those numbers are still growing as final counts come in.

Dodgers

The Dodgers’ main roster should remain largely the same in 2026. However, they still need to address some areas and make key decisions as they try to repeat as champions next year.

An average of 16.1 million people in the U.S. tuned in to watch each game, which is higher than last year’s viewership. This is impressive considering the New York Yankees didn’t make it to the series, and a Canadian team participated. The longer, more exciting seven-game series last year, compared to five games the year before, likely contributed to the increased numbers.

For the third year in a row, and five times in the last six years, more people watched the World Series than the NBA Finals. This year, the World Series had 56% more viewers.

High viewership for the World Series and continued growth in attendance show how risky it would be for team owners to lock out players next year and disrupt the season while trying to implement a salary cap.

Major League Baseball suffered after a player strike canceled the end of the 1994 season and delayed the start of 1995. It took until 2006 for average game attendance to recover to its previous levels. However, attendance then declined again, partly because games became increasingly long – often exceeding three hours. The recent introduction of a pitch clock has addressed this issue, as did the disruption caused by the pandemic.

Even with the recent gains, attendance remains 10% below its 2007 peak.

Even though the Atlanta Braves didn’t make the playoffs this year – ending a six-year streak – the team announced strong financial results on Wednesday. They reported $671 million in revenue through September 30th, a 10% increase from the previous year, and a profit of $36 million.

The Braves made $71 million from The Battery, the area around their stadium, which relies heavily on selling around three million tickets to games annually. Because the Braves are a publicly traded company, they have to share this financial information, unlike the Dodgers and many other baseball teams.

Los Angeles was the top U.S. city for viewers of the World Series, with San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, and Milwaukee rounding out the top five, according to data from Fox.

Dodgers

The Dodgers had the skill and financial backing to win two World Series in a row. However, overcoming the challenges – both mental and physical – posed by the Toronto Blue Jays required something more.

Sacramento, where the Athletics currently play, and Las Vegas, their future home, both landed in the top ten rankings.

Despite having much smaller populations than the U.S. – Japan has about a third as many people, and Canada about a tenth – the World Series still drew impressive viewership numbers. It averaged 9.7 million viewers in Japan and 8.1 million in Canada.

The final game of the series was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canadian history, except for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

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2025-11-05 22:03