The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
