The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
