The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks 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 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
