The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
