The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
