The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
