The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
