The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
