The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
