The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
