The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
