The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since 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 sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
