The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
