The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
