The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall 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 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
