The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 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 followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
