The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
