The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
