The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
