The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan 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 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
