The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
