The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
