The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
