The thrilling extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
