The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
