The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
