The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
