The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
