The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
