The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
