The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
