The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
