The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
