The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average 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 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
