The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
