The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
