The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
