The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
