The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
