The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
