The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
