The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
