The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
