The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
