The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
