The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
