The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
