The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members 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 additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
