The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
