The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
