The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
