The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
