The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
