The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
