The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
