The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
