The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
