The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
