The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
