The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
