The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks 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 American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
