The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
