The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 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 series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
