The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
