The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
