The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
