The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
