The exciting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
