The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English 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 drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
