The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average 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 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
