The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
