The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
