The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
