The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
