The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
