The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
