The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
