Fall Classic Final Game Attracts Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
