The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
