The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
