The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
