The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
