The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
