The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, 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-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
