The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
