The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
