The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
