The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per 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 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
