Fall Classic Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
