The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
