The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
