The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
