The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
