The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
