The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began 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 frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
