The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
