The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance 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 16 various tongues.
