The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was 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 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
