The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
