The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 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 highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
