Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51 Million Viewers Across the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.