The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
