The exciting extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
