The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed 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 highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
