The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
