The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
