The 2025 MLB playoffs have not lacked for drama ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers-Toronto Blue Jays World Series. It hasn’t lacked for viewers, either.
Two days before the Fall Classic is set to begin, MLB announced that its playoffs games have averaged 4.48 million viewers across 40 games, making this the league’s most-watched postseason since 2017 and a 13% increase over last year’s numbers.
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Ratings have been particularly strong in Canada and Japan, for obvious reasons. Game 7 of the ALCS, in which the Toronto Blue Jays eliminated the Seattle Mariners and advanced to their first World Series since 1993, averaged six million viewers in Canada, the most-watched Blue Jays game ever on Sportsnet. Overall, the game drew 15.03 million combined between Sportsnet and the Fox family of networks and streaming, making it the most-watched ALCS game since 2017.
Viewership for the entire ALCS was up, too, when you factor in Canada, with a combined average of 9.39 million viewers. That’s reportedly a 60% increase over last year’s ALCS, which saw the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians in five games (series that go longer tend to do better, ratings-wise).
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As for the NLCS, the Dodgers’ sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers was at least a hit in Shohei Ohtani’s home country. Japan saw an average of 7.34 million viewers tune in for the game, a 26% increase over the previous record of last year’s NLCS. MLB did not share the U.S. numbers for the series.
That performance peaked when Ohtani did, as 10.26 million viewers in the country tuned in to watch his three-homer, 10-strikeout masterpiece in Game 4.
Japan is following Shohei Ohtani’s every move as the Dodgers enter their second straight World Series. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)
(MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images via Getty Images)
All of that is encouraging for MLB, especially when you consider the Dodgers have breezed through the first three rounds with little drama, which usually increases ratings, while the New York Yankees got bounced in the ALDS.
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The Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series will be a clash between two large-market teams, with Canada and Japan seemingly poised to break all sorts of viewership records. As of Wednesday evening, BetMGM favors the Dodgers at -220 to become the first team to win back-to-back titles since the 1998-2000 Yankees.