Having a Canadian team in an important championship final does make a huge difference, audience-wise. The first two games of the 2025 World Series show the Toronto Blue Jays/Los Angeles Dodgers final round averaging over six million viewers in Canada after a two game home split in Toronto. Imagine, Rogers Sports and Media execs must be thinking, what The Leafs could do if they ever made the Stanley Cup finals?
Unfortunately, we will never know in our lifetimes. However, we do have baseball numbers from last Friday and Saturday:
Friday, October 24: Toronto’s impressive, 11-4 victory over LA in Game 1 drew an estimated, average overnight audience of 5,262,000 on Sportsnet National, specialty and dot com. Nearly two million of that total was in the 18-49 demo. Add the Fox Network feed simulcast on Citytv (with its superior camera work and direction, although kudos to the Canadian play-by-play coverage on Sportsnet) and another 1,146,000 viewers watched Game 1 in Canada. Combined total: 6,408,000 in terms of average minute audience saw the game.
Everything else on TV in Canada got smoked. Global’s top import on the night: the new procedural Sheriff Country (474,000). CTV’s biggest draw in prime: Boston Blue (401,000). TSN picked off a few sports fans with an NHL Jets/Flames tilt (124,000) and a CFL rivalry game between Calgary and Edmonton (195,000).
Saturday, October 25: with the Dodgers pitching ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto on a complete game cruise control victory, some viewers hopped off the Jays wagon. Sportsnet shed about half a million from the night before, down to 4,746,000. The joyless post-game drew 889,000 compared to the post party on Sportnet 24 hours earlier (1,244,000). Add the Fox feed of Game 2 on Citytv, which totalled 1,173,000, and the combined World Series audience Saturday fell short of six million with an overnight, estimated 5,919,000 heads tallied.
Beyond that, just leftovers for CBC and HNiC (East Prime Habs vs Canucks 361,000; West Prime OIlers vs Kraven 186,000). TSN tackled 350,000 for a CFL playoff game between Saskatchewan and BC.
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Game 3 in the series — the first of three nights in a row in Los Angeles — can be seen Monday night starting at 8 pm ET on Sportsnet. City and Fox.
