The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
