The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
