The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
