The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
