The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
