The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
