The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
