The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
