The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
