The exciting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
