The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
