The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
