The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
