The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
