The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings 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 languages.
