The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
