The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final 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 Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
