The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
