The exciting extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
