Fall Classic Final Game Attracts 51M Viewers Across the United States, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
