The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
