The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
