The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic 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 single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
