The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
