The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
