The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
