The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
