Fall Classic Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
