The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
