The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
