The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
