The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.