The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
