The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
