Fall Classic Final Game Attracts Over 50 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.