The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous 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 highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
