The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
