The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
