The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
