The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. 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 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over 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 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
