The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began 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 innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
