The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
