The exciting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
