The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
