The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
