The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
