The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
