The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
