The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
