The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
