The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
