The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
