The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
