The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
