The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
