The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
