The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
