The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
