The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
