The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
