The thrilling extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
