The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
