The 2025 World Series – an epic seven-game battle between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays – is in the books. How did it fare compared to prior years? How many viewed it in Canada? What does it say about the health of Major League Baseball? Here’s the data and context.
For the second year in a row, the World Series has benefited from a large market and a big brand in the Los Angeles Dodgers. This has allowed one of its biggest stars, Shohei Ohtani, to perform on the biggest stage, alongside Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto. While last year saw the two largest markets – LA and New York, with the Yankees – this year has had an international flavor, with the Toronto Blue Jays.
What occurred was one of – if not the – greatest World Series ever to take place, pushing it to the full seven games with two, including the decisive Game 7, going to extra innings. That fueled incredible interest in the series. While I dug into Games 1-5 ahead of the series’ completion, with Games 6 and 7 in the books, we can examine how the 2025 World Series was received, not only in the U.S., but also in Canada and Japan.
With the Dodgers being the first team since the 1998-2000 Yankees to win back-to-back World Series titles, the decisive Game 7 of the 2025 World Series drew 27.33 million viewers across FOX, FOX Deportes, and FOX Sports streaming platforms. That ranked as the most-watched World Series game since 2017’s Game 7, when the Houston Astros faced the Dodgers and drew an average audience of 29,069,000.
Game 6 delivered a combined 17,995,000 viewers across FOX, FOX Deportes, and FOX Sports streaming platforms to rank as the most-watched Game 6 of the World Series since 2017 (note that last year’s World Series ended in five games, but would most likely have drawn more given the LA-NY matchup of the two largest markets in the country).
Through seven games on FOX, the 121st World Series delivered an average of 15,709,000 viewers – the best complete average for a World Series since 2017 (18,926,000 viewers) and up +2% over last year’s average for five games (15,336,000 viewers). To place that in perspective, the 2025 NBA Finals averaged 10.27 million viewers.
Collectively, between the U.S., Canada, and Japan, Game 7 averaged 51.0 million viewers combined, making the 11-inning instant classic the most-watched MLB game in 34 years, since Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. The complete seven-game series average viewership reached a combined 34.0 million viewers across the U.S., Canada, and Japan, marking the largest audience for the World Series since 1992 and representing a 19% increase compared to last year, when the series between the Dodgers and Yankees lasted just five games.
According to Nielsen, over the last week, World Series games on FOX accounted for five of the top 11 broadcasts in the U.S., with only the CBS national afternoon broadcast window seeing more viewers than Game 7 (30.838 million compared to 26.882 million)
Overall, viewership averaged higher this year, but only due to the additional games.
Record Canadian Viewership
The Toronto Blue Jays had not been in the World Series for 32 years when they last went back-to-back as champions in 1992-93, so viewership in Canada was expected to be high.
The 2025 World Series smashed records, starting with Game 7, which saw an average audience of 10.9 million viewers on Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, and Citytv. That made it the most-watched Rogers broadcast ever. It was also the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canadian history, outside of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Overall, 18.5 million Canadian viewers, or 45% of Canada’s population, watched some or all of Game 7. The average audience peaked at 14 million around 11:38 p.m. ET when Ernie Clement came to bat with two on and two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning.
For the entirety of the 2025 World Series, viewership in Canada averaged 7.5 million viewers, with 23 million tuning in at some point. The seven World Series broadcasts were the seven most-watched Blue Jays games ever.
To place the numbers in perspective, the average Canadian audience of 7,585,714 for the 2025 World Series is a 1,017% increase in viewership compared to last year’s World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees (679,400); up 1,602% from the 2023 Fall Classic between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks (445,600), and; a 1,269% increase over the 2022 World Series between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies (554,200)
Nielsen does not measure television viewership outside the U.S., so the source for measurement in Canada is done by Source: Numeris and Total Canada
The average Canadian audience for each game of the 2025 World Series was:
- Game 1 – 7 million
- Game 2 – 6.6 million
- Game 3 – 5.8 million
- Game 4 – 6.2 million
- Game 5 – 7.2 million
- Game 6 – 9.4 million
- Game 7 – 10.9 million
Despite Early Morning Broadcast Times, Japan Sees Incredible Viewership
This is the first year that MLB’s World Series broadcast agreement in Japan is with a single network, NHK. Games were carried between NHK G (their main, general channel) and NHK BS (NHK’s entry-level satellite service).
Games in Japan had a 9 am start time. Still, viewership was incredible, largely due to the Japanese stars on the Dodgers.
Game One averaged 11.8 million viewers on NHK-G making it the most-watched World Series game ever in Japan on a single network in the country and the third most-watched World Series game ever.
- Game 1 – 11.81 million avg. viewers (NHK G)
- Game 2 – 9.52 million avg. viewers (NHK BS)
- Game 3 – 6.23 million avg. viewers (NHK BS)
- Game 4- 9.61 million avg. viewers (NHK G)
- Game 5 – 7.57 million avg. viewers (NHK G)
- Game 6 – 13.05 million avg. viewers (NHK G)
- Game 7 – 11.98 million avg. viewers (NHK BS)
Global Audience Will Show Record Viewership
The 2025 World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 languages. Major League Baseball continues to gather viewership data worldwide. Still, with the U.S., Canada, and Japan numbers in, the league reports that Game Seven of the World Series averaged 51.0 million viewers, making it the most-watched MLB game in 34 years, since Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.
Cumulatively, the complete seven-game average registered a combined 34.0 million viewers across the U.S., Canada and Japan, capturing the largest audience for the World Series since 1992 and an increase of +19% compared to last year.
How Does The 2025 World Series Stack Up Compared To Years Prior In The U.S.
The television landscape has changed dramatically since Nielsen began collecting data. Starting in 1973, World Series numbers have been collected when there were just three channels, and baseball still had the place of national prominence over the NFL. That created a captive audience and incredible viewership numbers that will never be replicated.
The 2025 World Series numbers also see a shift in methodology by Nielsen, which sees a “Big Data” + Panel measurement process that accounts for streaming and out-of-home viewership that was not accounted for previously. That likely bumped numbers up this year.
Below shows a graphical representation of the World Series, both recently and historically, dating back to 1973 (click the images for larger view)