Fall Classic Final Game Attracts 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.