The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
