The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
