The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
