The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
