The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
