The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
