The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
