The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
