The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
