The exciting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
