The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
