The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
