The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
