The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last 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 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
