The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
