The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
