The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
