The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
