The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
