The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
