The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
