The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
