The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
