The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
