The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
