The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
