The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
