The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
