The exciting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
