The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
