The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
