Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51M Audience Members Across the United States, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
