The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
