The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
