The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
